


Evil is Sexy

by Dolf241



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bestiality, Blow Jobs, Come Eating, Comeplay, Cowgirl Position, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Doggy Style, Exhibitionism, F/M, Facials, Gangbang, Knotting, Large Cock, Mild reluctance, Missionary Position, Monster sex, Oral Sex, Orgy, References to Prostitution, Ritual Sex, Sex with Sentient Animals, Size Difference, Something vaguely like plot in Chapter 3!, Spirits, Teaching, Troll - Freeform, Troll sex, Wet & Messy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolf241/pseuds/Dolf241
Summary: This is a collection of stories written as part of a friend's collaborative fantasy setting, following the lusty misadventures of the self-titled Queen Tenebra and her court of monsters, exiles and outcasts. Whether any of them are actually evil is very much up for debate, but when the aesthetic is *that* good, really, who's going to argue?The first four chapters follow a loose order, but any subsequent fics I clean up and add in may not. Incidentally, none of these characters are mine - everything was written in conjunction with an artist friend's original universe and characters. So if you like any of these stories, please check out his work here - https://twitter.com/tealtentacle.
Relationships: Human/Troll - Relationship, Human/Wolf Spirit
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	1. Queen Tenebra and the Forest King

Tenebra, Dark Lady of the Gloaming Wood, looked out across her throne room and saw that all was well. The old decorations were gone; the banners and tapestries which once hung from the walls torn down, the long feasting tables thrown out into the courtyard, the thick carpets dragged away into the catacombs beneath her fortress. The only traces of artifice which remained were her graven throne atop its plinth at the end of the room, a huge drum which sat next to it, and the wooden doors opposite which led deeper into the castle. And even those had been concealed behind thick drapes of greenery.

All in all, Tenebra thought, Francis had done a rather astounding job. A great fire-pit blazed in the center of the room, filling the hall with sweltering heat and dim light, while the smoke was drawn out of the carefully-shrouded windows. Six inches of rich soil had turned the stone floor into a distant memory and provided a fertile bed for the magically-enriched constrictor ivy which smothered the walls and groped blindly across the ceiling.

Originally she had demanded trees, but as a self-styled mistress of evil, Tenebra's powers ran more towards the occult than naturalistic, and there was little she or her minions could do to propagate an oak tree in a few inches of dirt. In the end, though, it hadn't mattered. The illusion - no, the transformation, Tenebra corrected herself - was quite satisfactory. A few minor elementals completed the scene, blowing softly through the false trees or shining down from above like stars peering through a dense canopy.

Tenebra had adopted a great many guises in her time; she had been everything from a demon-worshiping cult queen to a star-gazing oracle of the apocalypse, but this was something new. No more would her followers sit in neatly ordered rows, polishing their armour and drinking from polished crystal and glass. Order and civilisation had been swept away. Now the hobgoblins and kobolds that made up her armies slouched around the edges of the room in barbarous huddles, content to warm themselves by the fire and bask in her glorious presence as they awaited her word.

Not even Tenebra herself had gone unchanged. Her fine dresses and beautiful gowns, each a masterwork of smoky silks and fragile lace, had been locked away in her chambers. In their place she wore little more than a thick cloak of tawny fur pulled tight around her slender body. Her hair, short, sleek and black, had been woven through with feathers and beads carved from bright stones. What little skin was visible through the heavy robe - a graceful arm, artfully crossed legs, and a delicately pointed face with lively eyes - was so smooth and pale it might be mistaken for purest alabaster, and had been painted with a complex pattern of angular runes.

Only one piece remained, and it was the most important of all. A Forest King. One of the last Forest Kings. Tenebra felt her heart beat a little harder at the idea.

"How soon?" she asked. One of the figures surrounding her throne - her elite, her chosen, the inner circle of advisors and bodyguards who had been with her from the beginning - stepped forwards. He was an orc, though far shorter than most of his kind, wiry where they were hulking. Were it not for his drab olive skin and small tusks, he might even have passed for human.

"Not long, dark one," Francis murmured. "Greyscale sent a carrier bird this morning. Assuming nothing bars his way, he expects to return to the cast- ah, the clearing sometime just before midnight. Perhaps an hour from now."

"Mmm." Tenebra took a horn of wine from a passing servant and sunk deeper onto her throne, sipping it thoughtfully. She glanced curiously at her majordomo. He had put only a minimum of effort into his outfit; the heavy pelt draped across his shoulders didn't quite distract from his elegantly tailored trousers and neat leather shoes. Tenebra idly ran a hand down the orc's forearm, her narrow lips quirking up into a lopsided smile as he stiffened under her touch.

"And will you be staying for the festivities?"

Francis pursed his lips, looking carefully off into the middle distance. "I rather thought, if it pleases my great and terrible mistress, to co-ordinate matters from the kitchens. So the revelers can...revel...without interruption."

"Does it please me? Hmm." She stroked her chin thoughtfully. "This is a savage and untamed place, Francis, a glade suitable for the fulfillment of one's darkest instincts. I stated very clearly it was to be so when you created it for me. Your squeamishness really is terribly inappropriate."

The orc offered his mistress a shallow bow of apology, but held his ground. "Thus my hesitation to remain. I know how much you dislike having the mood ruined, and things really will progress much more smoothly if I can oversee the servants directly."

Ixallion chattered with laughter. "Timid, this one. Why so? Great Queen has always been generous with her favours. Yet he works so hard to escape them."

The skinless imp stood in the shadows behind Tenebra's throne, ichorious fluids dripping from his lanky, red-raw body. He had procured a tatty set of labourer's overalls and a scythe from one of the farms that kept the castle supplied with food. Combined with his caprine skull and an inventively-hung laurel of ivy dangling from his horns, it gave him the appearance of a corrupted harvest-spirit, intent on mocking and terrorising those who dared to try taming the wilds.

It really was quite inventive. Tenebra caught the imp's eye and gave him a tiny nod of approval, making a mental note to visit him later and demonstrate her approval. Most of her inner circle doubled as regular lovers which she flitted between as the mood took her. Few were even remotely human. They each had something to recommend them - size, technique, enthusiasm, even the sheer strangeness of their anatomy pressed against her own held its appeal. Tenebra shifted on her throne, absent-mindedly rubbing her thighs together at the thought. If all went as planned, the Forest King would soon join them.

"I merely wish to serve," Francis replied, a note of weariness in his voice. "And though I stand ready in whatever capacity our great and terrible queen demands there are some tasks to which I am eminently more suited than others."

"And so you shall," Tenebra said. "You will remain here until the Forest King has bent to my will. Then, and only then, you may excuse yourself."

Francis inclined his head gratefully and retreated a pace. The orc had been with her almost since the start, and though it amused her to tease him for his prudishness, Tenebra relied upon his capabilities as an administrator more than she cared to admit. Ixallion was right; she was generous with her favours, and sometimes the greatest favour she could bestow was the freedom to do as one wished.

The echo of boots ringing against stone jolted Tenebra from her musings. "Really now," she tutted. "Footsteps? This loud? In the center of the forest? I think not." When the noise only grew, now clearly approaching the hall, she threw up her hands in exasperation. "We're going to need to expand the soil out into the next rooms, this is absurd."

And then the doors swung open, and the anger vanished from Tenebra's thoughts like shadows fleeing the sun.

A troupe of infantry marched in, led by a tall, powerful kobold with scales the colour and texture of slate, his one good eye flashing triumphantly. Their swords, spears and battered armour stood in stark contrast to the flint weapons and dense furs issued to their peers who had remained at court, and at their center they dragged a huge wrought-iron cage containing the largest wolf Tenebra had ever seen. It was almost as large and stocky as a bear, rippling with bestial muscle and covered in old scars. Quills bristled along its spine, rising from amidst a thick pelt as black as sin, while claws that could have gutted a horse gouged furiously at the earth.

The kobold strode up, walking confidently past the fire and kneeling at the foot of Tenebra's throne.

"Greyscale," Tenebra replied, leaning back and smiling indulgently. "You remain, as always, my most reliable agent. This creature is the Forest King?"

"Aye," Greyscale said. His voice was as stony as his hide, low and rasping. "The very same. Locals named him Drakk, after some local wood-demon. Don't think he'd care to use it himself, mind." The kobold snorted and nodded his head towards the beast. "He led us a merry dance through the woods for three days before we harried him into the cage, but we got there in the end."

The great wolf snarled and threw itself against the bars. The closest soldiers cringed backwards and fingered their weapons, glancing fearfully at their captive despite the cage which separated them. Some of the others slouched around the chamber chuckled.

"Well, it certainly seems vigorous enough. You've done well, as I knew you would, and may take your leave." Tenebra spared the soldiers a sideways glance. "Dispense with your tools of man and return quickly. The savage rite will begin shortly."

Greyscale nodded and gestured to his men. As they filed past the throne and left through one of the rear doors, the kobold caught Tenebra's gaze and gave her a wink. She smiled briefly, little more than a tiny uptick at the corner of her mouth, and motioned for him to hurry on his way. Across from her, the Forest King paced restlessly in his cage. Its eyes never left her, and Tenebra wondered exactly what the creature was expecting.

The Forest Kings were fae beings, as much spirit as flesh. They represented the darker side of nature - selfish consumption and domination, the joy of spit blood and rent flesh, savage and forceful matings. And while they were certainly intelligent and self-aware, they cared little for anything beyond fulfilling their own savage instincts. Such creatures were rare in the barren hinterlands Tenebra claimed for her own, but they had been ruthlessly culled and driven from their territories by the civilised nations to the south. Now they were on the verge of extinction, and that was a situation Tenebra simply could not allow.

And so she had concocted her latest guise, that of a dark and terrible woodland queen who ruled over a court of brutes and monsters from the blackest forest imaginable. Something a Forest King would find appealing, at least until it had been convinced to remain until her passions drifted and she reinvented herself once more. If the Forest King chose to leave, so be it, but Tenebra was supremely confident she could give the beast reason to stay at her side.

The soldiers returned swiftly, Greyscale still at their head, their battered arms and armour replaced with much more aesthetically-fitting furs and hides. Once they were seated, Tenebra called for silence and rose from her throne.

This was the moment, she thought. Her heart surged with anticipation. Every face in the room was turned towards her. Some were bright with admiration, others hungry with desire, but all were for her and her alone.

"Tonight, we welcome a newcomer to our circle. For many moons we have waited, seeking a sign from the ancient ones of their favour, and lo!" Tenebra threw out a hand, gesturing imperiously towards the caged Forest King. "They have sent a king to walk among us! A lord of the darkest and most blood-soaked forests, a being of pure instinct and savagery, to rule the night beside me!"

A cheer went up from the crowd. Orchestrated, of course; a handful of kobolds had been given instructions to cheer upon the delivery of certain lines, and the rest simply followed their lead. But Evil, Tenebra knew, was as much showmanship as anything else. Some things couldn't be left to chance.

"But this is my territory!" She pounded a hand against her chest, bellowing each word with as much gusto as she could manage. This was so different, she thought, so exciting! She strode back and forth before her throne, snarling and grimacing like an actress upon the stage. "I am queen here! I, Tenebra, Dark Lady of the Gloaming Wood, Pack-mistress of the Umbral Hunt, Queen of the Shadowed Boughs! And I will accept no weakness from my alpha!"

Tenebra hurled her cloak away with a flourish. She stood before the crowd, naked of anything but her warpaint and a handful of charms tied around her extremities, a ferocious grin on her face. Many of her followers had seen her undressed, of course, or wearing so little as to make no difference, and a significant minority had done a great deal more than see. But it was rare for her to go completely undressed before so many, and the thrill of it sent a delicious shiver down her spine.

She held the pose for three long seconds, indulging in the awestuck expressions which surrounded her. Then the dark queen stepped down from the throne, a deep boom following every footstep as a pair of minotaurs began beating out a slow rhythm from the drum. The Forest King shifted in his cage, his quills bristling in anticipation. It understood the challenge in Tenebra's speech. Bestial muscle rippled beneath his thick coat, preparing to spring.

"Release him," Tenebra said.

The Forest King leaped the moment the bolt was drawn back. To him, Tenebra must have seemed like a madwoman; tall, trim and slender, her skin smooth and unscarred, bereft of claws or muscle or anything which would allow her to triumph. She even seemed to freeze as he left the cage and hurtled towards her, teeth drawn and claws ready for the kill.

Then she moved. At the last moment Tenebra stepped aside and whipped one of her legs around, elegantly smashing the Forest King out of the air before he could reach her.

Tenebra almost laughed. The magic thrumming through her was something new - or, rather, something extremely, old, but a technique she had never experimented with. She was so used to casting spells outwards, charming and deceiving with illusions or filling the air with howling blasts of fire and lightning, the idea of channeling inwards had never really occurred. She danced to the left as the Forest King rolled to his feet and charged, almost playfully smacking the great wolf in the back of the head as he passed.

"Come!" She cried, laughing wildly as the beast snarled at her in fury. "Do you want me? To tear my flesh and feast on my bones? Then come and get them!"

The Forest King charged again. This time he changed direction at the last moment, anticipating the dark queen's leap and bowling Tenebra to to the ground. Hot breath washed over her as she rolled between the beast's legs, moving far quicker than any mortal being could and slipping away from his claws by inches.

Tenebra's breath came in short gasps. Her head spun. Adrenaline thundered through her veins. Was this what it was like to actually fight people? Up close? With a sword? Should try that one day, she thought distantly. Some sort of amazon Warrior Queen, like the old Boudaccaeans, ruling over a harem of dethroned kings...

She jinked aside again and again, each time evading the Forest King's savagery by a hair. The crowd gasped and cheered each time, watching enraptured as their queen danced around the arena with the great wolf in tow. Every now and then she would land a blow of her own - a kick to the beast's ankle, a swift slap across its nose, a small fist thumped between its eyes.

Twice the Forest King managed to draw blood. The first came when she sidestepped a hair too late and took a swipe across the thigh. The second caught her across the belly when she misjudged the beast's reach. The powerful enchantments she had woven upon herself reduced the blows to shallow cuts, the fresh sting of pain coming to her as bright and clear as crystal. It didn't slow her. Many of her more infernal lovers had left their own, similar marks in the past.

Before long Tenebra noticed a change in the Forest King's demeanor. The wild savagery which had dominated his earlier blows had vanished. Now the great wolf paced around her carefully, observing for long seconds before making a cautious attack and retreating. And even though they would have broken bones without her enchantments, the creature's blows now seemed more playful than truly aggressive. As if he was goading her.

Tenebra grinned, her pale face glowing in the firelight. She had him. There was a heat building in her stomach, something which had nothing to do with the blaze roaring in the center of the room. Her heart beat fast and hard, matching the boom of the drum, and the first beads of arousal prickled on her lips. She jinked away from the Forest King's paw and caught sight of something emerging between the spirit's legs.

A tremour of anticipation rolled through her. Tenebra had dallied with men and monsters of all kinds, from the beautifully hideous to the simply beautiful, but this would be something truly memorable. To lay with a beast! Oh, true, a great and cunning beast possessed of his own dark intelligence, but a beast in form nonetheless. In all her years of explorations, through all the personas she had adopted, she had never tried such a thing. Now it seemed almost absurd that she had not.

Let the civilised nations of the south whine and clutch their pearls, Tenebra thought; let them talk of sin and taboo and lines that should never be crossed. She would take all life had to offer and more, she would indulge in every new experience the world could place before her, and she would never, ever apologise. That, not the pointless cruelty her rivals employed, was the true essence of Evil. It was everything she had come to encapsulate.

Tenebra dropped to her knees, then onto all fours. Her gaze never wavered as she wound her way sinuously towards the Forest King, fearlessly holding the great beast's scrutiny. He took a step backwards, flicking his tail, then sniffed the air. Tenebra could almost see the battle going on in the beast's eyes. Caution learned from years of evading human hunters warred against the deeper, primal urge to breed. His shaft twitched, shockingly red and bulbous against his midnight fur.

He growled as Tenebra drew close enough to run a hand along his flank, but made no move to pull away. This was the most dangerous point - if the Forest King turned and locked his teeth around her neck, Tenebra knew she would be done for, enchantments or not. But she had conquered stranger and more powerful beings in her time, and the idea of giving up now, in front of her assembled courtiers and servants, seemed strangely worse than the idea of death.

The Forest King's fur was thick and coarse, the corded muscles beneath almost vibrating with tension. She teased her fingers through his coat, whispering soothing words under her breath until she felt the great wolf begin to relax. It was only up close that Tenebra really began to appreciate how large the Forest King was. She was a tall woman, imposingly so when she wished it, but kneeling next to the beast barely brought her up to his shoulders. Soon that body would be atop her own, pinning her willowy form in place as the beast mated her.

Tenebra groaned, softly, under her breath at the thought. She could feel herself getting wetter and wetter. Each breath came faster than the last, almost rasping in her lungs. Slowly her hand traveled beneath the Forest King's great body, stroking over his softer belly-fur, until it touched something quite different. The Forest King jumped, his ears twitching as Tenebra shuffled to the side and pulled his cock towards her.

It was magnificent. Huge, thick, almost impossibly hot between her delicate fingers, the shaft was far smoother than a man's and patterned with delicate red and purple veins. There was no real head, just a blunt ending which terminated in a pointed tip. Tenebra gave it a curious stroke, then smiled in amusement as the Forest King let out a short yip of pleasure and bled a drop of slippery precome into her palm. Men, it seemed, were all largely the same no matter their form.

But she could do far better than stroke. Tenebra looked up from her prize, noting with some amusement that Francis had already excused himself. Her minions continued to lounge, watching the unfolding display with rapt attention. Servants were working their way through the crowd, distributing horns of wine and chews of narcotic leaves.

"Now, all of you, see! With his act, we seal the most ancient of pacts with our new king! For ever and always will he walk amongst us, a paragon of savage virtue, a totem of our devotion to the old gods! What we do tonight, let no man of the south put aside!"

And with that, Tenebra bowed her head and wrapped her lips around the Forest King's shaft.

It was so hot. So hard. The taste was raw and inhuman, the thin, salty precome mixing with the great beast's animal musk into something powerfully intoxicating. The Forest King let out a deep rumble as Tenebra slid down his length. She took her time, swallowing him inch by inch, exploring his strange prick with her tongue as it gradually slipped deeper into her mouth. New experiences, after all, were never to be rushed, and Tenebra fully intended to savour everything she could.

It was not, in many ways, all that different from sucking any other man's cock. The shape was different, of course, but she found swirling her tongue around the narrow point whenever she withdrew to be eminently satisfying. Soon Tenebra was bobbing her head with enthusiasm, humming and moaning with pleasure as she worked her way up and down the Forest King's shaft. One hand cradled his heavy testicles, rolling them back and forth through their sheath of wiry fur; the other stroked the great beast's thighs and underbelly, encouraging him to stay still and calm as she indulged.

The Forest King, for his part, stood as still as a statue, struck dumb by the dark queen's ministrations. Every so often the great beast would let out a deep rumble of pleasure that coursed though his heavy body, setting off a sympathetic twinge of satisfaction deep in Tenebra's core. This was as new to him as it was to her; his previous mates would have been other spirits, animals and beasts of the deep forest. They would have been frenzied and violent encounters, Tenebra thought; he would have never experienced the pleasure of a pair of willing lips around his cock, or a mate as wild and lustful as himself. She was a little smug about that.

Soon the Forest King began to paw at the ground, digging his hind legs into the earth and occasionally thrusting impatiently into Tenebra's mouth. Precome flowed freely; it was thinner and hotter than a man's but there seemed to be no end to it, swirling around her tongue and coating her cheeks within moments. It wasn't long before the dark queen was forced to gulp down great swallows of the stuff between breaths. The first took her by surprise; she let out a muffled noise of surprise and almost gagged as the pungent liquid slithered down her throat, but by the third she had settled into a comfortable rhythm and drank her canine lover's nectar like a drunkard at the tap.

The taste, the scent, the beautifully perverse knowledge that she was fellating a great beast in full view of her underlings, it was all having quite the delirious effect on the kneeling woman. Sweat trickled down Tenebra's willowy body, tingling as it worked down her flawless skin and dragged her warpaint into long streaks. Her hair had fallen quite out of order - in the back of her mind, she thought about trying to find some kind of enchantment to keep it fixed in place next time - and bright flecks of precome sparkled across her bust where they had escaped her hungry lips.

But greatest of all was the heat building in her stomach, bright and hot and as dense as molten lead, and the eager tension spreading out through her muscles. Her sex ached; she longed to feel the Forest King's thick, bulbous cock buried inside her, to rut with him like an animal, to be spread wide and tied by the swollen knot that was inflating even now at the base of his organ. The idea it could somehow fit inside her seemed absurd; it was almost twice as wide as the thickest part of the beast's shaft and felt even harder than the rest.

Tenebra let the Forest King's cock slip from her mouth. She cradled it in her hands and lathered it with kisses, from the pointed tip to the brutal knot itself, even as the pulsing organ continued to twitch and spurt precome across her chest. She had teased him enough. It was time to put her offer before him.

"Did you enjoy that, my king?" she whispered, nuzzling against the beast's underbelly. Her mounting need had become almost impossible to resist; it had seared into her core, drowning rational thought and making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. "Do you see what I can offer? Lay your head at my throne. Make the lands outside this castle your territory. Become my hunter, my tracker, my sacred wild beast. My mate."

The Forest King growled, the sound low and volcanic. Tenebra smiled as he strained against her fingers, as eager and desperate as she was.

"I ask nothing of you but loyalty. Prey not upon me or my servants, and carry word of any intruders into your territory back to me before attacking. Beyond this you may come and go as you please, hunt what you like, and take whatever mates will yield to your advances. Any who strike at you will earn the wrath of my forces, and you shall feast well on their corpses."

Another rumble. The Forest King's flanks heaved. Tenebra had no idea if that was an agreement or not. And in truth, at that moment, she didn't particularly care. If the Forest King departed once the night was over, so be it, so long as the desperate yearning in her core was sated beforehand.

Tenebra wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and rose, casually looking out over her assembled minions. The drugs and wine she had distributed were having the desired effect; though perhaps a third of her warriors remained wholly focused on her, the others were yielding to their own desires. Clothes were discarded. Bodies were beginning to intertwine. Some were even turning to the constrictor ivy, inducing it to wrap around their bodies as their peers advanced with lustful intent.

Good. Tenebra knew what she was doing with the Forest King might prove...controversial, especially with some of her newer recruits. Any potential spies her rivals had seeded amongst them would delight in carrying lurid stories back to their masters. But once the night was done, most of the crowd would recall little more than hazy memories of a drug-fueled orgy, and the dark powers alone knew how many of THOSE went on nightly throughout the hinterlands.

But those were thoughts for another day. Tenebra turned back to the Forest King and beckoned him to follow her. Her heart began to race as she led the spirit to the base of her throne and once more dropped onto all fours, spreading her legs and bracing herself to be taken by the great, feral beast.

Long seconds passed. Tenebra swallowed, flicking her eyes from left to to right but not daring to turn around. Had the Forest King rejected her? She had counted upon overriding the creature's natural caution by playing to its mating instincts, but for all appearances it was still an intelligent being. It could have chosen to leave. Tenebra held her breath, straining to hear anything over the growing clamour of her audience. A footstep, perhaps. The swish of a tail. Anything.

Then something massive and hairy landed on her back. Tenebra gasped, struggling to keep herself upright even with the added strength of her enchantments. The sensation was overwhelming, dominating, a heavy presense that weighed upon her mind as much as her body. Clawed forelegs scrabbled for purchase on the stone steps of the dais. The Forest King's bestial musk filled the air. Some instinct, buried deep in the dark queen's hindbrain, screamed for her to go prone, that the only way to survive would be to fall limp and let the spirit do as it wished.

She ignored it. Tenebra pushed back, her arms shaking as she bore the monstrous wolf-spirit's weight, determined to show the Forest King her worth. Tremours of anticipation rolled up and down along her body. Tenebra could feel the Forest King's cock against her thighs as he struggled into position. Her breaths came hard and fast, a wide, lurid grin splitting her face from ear to ear. The ache in her core was almost physically painful.

"Not long," she whispered to herself. "Soon, soon."

The Forest King's body was like a prison. His legs caged her like bars of black iron. Tenebra hissed as the spirit bucked and squirmed, his shaft rubbing incessantly against her pale skin as he sought a workable angle. The spirit's head appeared over her shoulder for a moment, his long, yellowed fangs bared in frustration, before disappearing out of sight once more. She moaned, the sound throaty with longing, shifting back and forth in the hope of finding some way to accommodate him.

And then it happened. The tip of the Forest King's swollen, red cock caught between her lips and snagged tight. Tenebra had just enough time to draw breath before the rest of it followed.

She half-moaned, half-screamed as the Forest King claimed her with a single rough thrust. A wave of pleasure radiated through her, the dark queen crying out in ecstasy as she finally received the relief she craved. His cock felt even larger inside her than it had in her hands; had she been any less aroused, had the thought of being pinned down and mated by the great wolf not left her as wet and eager as a trained courtesan, there would have been considerable pain.

"Ah, ah!" Tenebra gasped. Her fingers sank into the dirt floor, knuckles brushing the cold stone beneath as they curled into fists. "Yes!"

There was no respite; no chance to catch her breath. The Forest King was already thrusting, driving his hips up and down at a relentless pace. His knot pounded at Tenebra's entrance like a battering ram, rubbing against her clit whenever he hilted himself inside her, stoking the flames of her passion higher and higher. His thighs squeezed tight around her hindquarters. As if she was going anywhere, Tenebra thought. As if she would want to. She pushed back against the Forest King's movements, fighting not to be knocked flat each time the spirit slammed home. He growled at that; she growled right back, and the spirit made a short chuffing noise that might have been laughter.

It was wholly unlike anything she had experienced before. He was everywhere at once. It would have been impossible to ignore him for so much as a second. Tenebra could feel the Forest King atop her, behind her, within her - even his scent surrounded her, permeating the air, making her head spin as the beast panted with exertion. Fur tickled over sensitive skin, teasing her as if she were being caressed by a dozen long feathers. His prick throbbed obscenely, pulsing in time with his great, feral heart, each thrust scratching the desperate itch that seethed deep in her core. Precome splashed against her silken walls, mixing with her arousal and dripping from the site of their union in long strings.

And the heat of it! It was as if the fire in her belly had taken physical shape, moulding itself into a burning, achingly hard shaft of raw, animal lust. It felt wonderful. How had she not done this sooner? Tenebra could feel the beast's need, his desperate, animal desire to bury the swollen bulb of meat between her folds and finally empty himself inside her. It echoed though her with every stroke of his crimson shaft, raw and selfish and pure, free from the ulterior motives her other suitors often held. The Forest King cared nothing for prestige or position or favours. It was lust alone which united them.

Tenebra laughed suddenly, the sound wild and breathless as a particularly violent spasm of pleasure rolled through her. Her first climax came moments later, sneaking up between the rhythmic beats of the Forest King's knot against her buzzing clit before lashing through her like the blow from a whip. She clenched down around the bestial cock, hugging him tight as she moaned and shuddered and came, rocking in time with the monstrous wolf and losing herself in the strangeness and newness and beautiful perversity of it all.

Around her, the room had devolved into chaos, just as Tenebra had known it would. The servants had returned, disrobed, and offered themselves to the crowds, melting into the seething mass of bodies. Greyscale lounged upon a transplanted tree stump, his wiry thighs spread so a blonde woman could service him with her mouth; Tenebra caught his eye and gave him a brief wink. The kobold mouthed something back - it was lost to the clamour in the hall, but he raised his horn to her in salute, and that was enough.

Others were watching her too. Occasionally one would try to approach, only to be driven back by a possessive snap of the Forest King's jaws when they drew too close. The wisest simply stared greedily and touched themselves as their queen was mated before their eyes, writhing and moaning around the swollen, inhuman prick buried in her sex. If anything, the sensation of their eyes creeping over her pallid body, streaked with sweat and paint and flecked with her lover's clinging black hairs only stoked Tenebra's arousal higher. Before long the dying embers of her climax were flaring into life once more, the relentless yearning in her core not yet sated.

And the whole time, the thought echoed through Tenebra's head; a wolf, a wolf, a wolf. It seemed almost unbelievable she had not experimented in this way before, and now that she had, the idea had caught in her brain like a hook. There were other wolves loose in the Hinterlands; wolves and stranger things besides. Perhaps the Forest King would rally them as a pack? High Beastmistress had a nice ring to it, she thought vaguely. Images of herself surrounded by a tide of slinking animal bodies, the Forest King ever at her side, floated through the dark queen's mind. Perhaps something in strappy leather would carry the appropriate aesthetic? 

Tenebra was shaken from her pleasure-drunk musings by a sudden pressure against her folds. The Forest King had ceased his violent thrusts. His great head lay across her shoulder, lips drawn back from dagger-like fangs in a silent snarl. The great wolf's ears were pinned back and his eyes were narrow with effort. Quills bristled along his back. His thighs clenched around her hindquarters, holding her tight as he sought the leverage he needed. Tenebra let out a short breath. Her heart skipped with excitement. A violent throb pulsed deep in her sex, her walls instinctively hugging tight around the beast's member.

"Do it," she hissed, turning to look the Forest King straight in the eye. "Give me everything."

The pressure increased. Tenebra could feel every muscle in the Forest King's body vibrating with effort. She was a slender woman, her passage narrow and tight, and though she took a breath and tried to make herself relax, their final joining was neither quick nor easy.

The sensation was immense. Crushing. Drowning. Tenebra moaned softly as she was slowly pried open, her entrance stretching wider and wider to admit the Forest King's knot. There was a little pain, a thin, high note of discordance which rang incessantly in the back of Tenebra's head, but it never, never rose higher than the blanket of ecstasy which spread out from the site of their union. The Forest King growled along with her. Their voices mixed, human and animal, in a shared song of desperate frustration.

For a few long, beautiful moments, the world fell away. There was nothing but the growling animal atop her, her eager pants and the relentless force being exerted against her delicate sex. Waves of pleasure coursed through Tenebra's pallid body, her lips twitching and aching in protest as they were forced to give ground before the bestial invader. There was a hollowness in her core, a desperation to feel everything the spirit could give her, like a bitter edge to the orgasm that danced on the edge of perception.

Then it happened. A jolt of queasy pleasure rocked the dark queen as her lips finally gave way and the Forest King slammed home. The force of it, and the violent convulsions which rocked her aching, sweat-streaked body, almost knocked her face-first into the earth. But as her battered folds closed around the dense bulb of flesh and the Forest King's last few inches surged into her core, as her climax peaked and washed over her in a burning tide of heat and joy, Tenebra braced her arms and pushed back, giving voice to a savage cry of triumph as she bore the great beast's final assault.

The world returned. For the first time since taking her, the Forest King stood still. Tenebra could feel him inside of her - from the knot stretching out her entrance and pressing against her most sensitive places, turning every breath and shudder into a cascade of ecstasy, to the blunt tip lodged in her core and the throbbing shaft that united them. The yearning in her core was dying, a warm, heavy feeling of satiation spreading out in its place. Tenebra slowly lowered herself to the ground, making a pillow with her arms and resting her head atop it. The Forest King's eyes were glazed with pleasure. She knew what was going to happen next and intended to enjoy every moment of it.

His organ throbbed, from the tip to the knot, and he began to come. Tenebra sighed happily, clenching and unclenching her toes as the Forest King poured himself into her. There was no single, dramatic moment of release; instead he came and came, bathing the dark queen's trembling walls with his seed and flooding every tiny space not already filled with his cock.

The spirit stooped down and lapped at her face. Tenebra smiled indulgently, raising her head and kissing him gently on the nose. The Forest King's tail flicked happily, tickling her thighs.

"We are in agreement, then?" She murmured, gasping softly as the endless, liquid heat flowed into her. "Stay with me here and this is the least of the pleasures I can show you, I promise you that."

The beast made a short huffing noise and bowed his head, then slouched forwards to rest his chin on the dais. Tenebra sighed happily, sinking into the gentle post-coital haze like a warm bath. The Forest King was still going, still coming. There was a sharp tingle as the first spirt of seed forced its way past his knot and slithered across her sensitive folds. A second and then a third soon followed, and before long a pool of the slippery, pearly liquid had formed beneath them.

His taste lingered in Tenebra's mouth. The musky tang of his precome still coated her cheeks and danced on her tongue, making her wonder what it would have been like had he finished between her lips. There was so much of it. She could have drank her fill of his seed and allowed the rest to spill across her body, and worn the smell of him for days afterwards. Tenebra shuddered in pleasure at the thought. Something for next time, perhaps.

For now, she had tamed a Forest King. Or...if not tamed, then at least allied with one. And in the most delightful way possible. That was one for the history books. Tenebra stretched, stirred and briefly attempted to untangle herself, intent on spectating the chaos from her throne. She was rewarded with a twinge of discomfort as the Forest King's engorged knot shifted inside her and a muffled growl of irritation from the creature himself.

"Ah," she muttered. There was another twitch deep in her core, and another wave of bestial come pulsed through her. "We're going to be here for a while, then."

\---

The neat click of Francis' boots echoed down the stony corridor. Servants ran back and forth in a frenzy, sweeping away leftover patches of soil and cutting back the last, aggressive growths of constrictor ivy. He stepped aside as a kobold work-gang scurried past, offering the gaggle of rangy lizards a small bow as they manhandled a bundle of paintings twice their size back into their proper place.

"Everything coming along quick-good, lord adjutant!" one of them chirped, waving at him as they vanished around a corner. "Soon have things back to normal!"

"As normal as things get around here," the half-orc murmured to himself. Tenebra had given him a home and a job he excelled at in a world where most would have killed him or turned him away, for which she had earned his eternal gratitude, and he admired her for managing to transform a swathe of the lawless hinterlands into something approaching civilised. But on some days, his Mistress' eccentricities were easier to put up with than others.

He hadn't seen the Forest King since the night of the ritual. Few of the attendees had any memory of what had happened. Tenebra's plan to befuddle the minds of her audience had worked like a charm, and her latest conquest was now little more than one of the many lurid stories passed around by the staff. According to Greyscale the creature itself had slunk away before dawn, a state of affairs Francis found entirely agreeable. Every book on etiquette in the castle library taught that one never let animals into the house, and common sense alone told him that one shouldn't...canoodle with them, no matter how intelligent they were.

But the Forest King had vanished. Tenebra had moped and sulked for a few days, sitting stubbornly on her throne and compelling her minions to carry on the act of pretending to be dirt-dwelling savages, before inevitably getting bored and ordering another redecoration.

Francis paused by one of the grand windows, watching a flight of hookbills circle in the distance. With the soldiery out collecting taxes from the lands under her control and the servants busy bringing the castle back into some semblance of order, a rare peace had settled upon the place. He smiled to himself and tapped a stylus against the edge of his clipboard. If his tax forecasts panned out, Tenebra would even escape her latest escapade without having slipped back into debt.

He decided to give her the good news in person and made his way swiftly to the great hall. The doors had been locked to keep the lingering odor of smoke from spreading, but the half-orc was one of the few retainers Tenebra trusted with a set of master keys. Humming a contented little tune, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

He was greeted with the sight of Tenebra perched daintily on the edge of her throne, her smoky gown hiked up over her small breasts and her drider-silk panties hanging from one ankle. The Forest King lay atop her, the dark queen's pale legs spread and kicking at the air, her arms wrapped lovingly around the beast's neck. A small voice in the back of Francis' head noticed the wet slick creeping down the front of the throne and whispered that he would have to get someone to clean it up.

"Oh, h-hello F-Francis," Tenebra trilled, turning and beaming happily at him. "Look wh- who's back!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written October 2019


	2. Winebearer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This short interlude was written to give some background to a character who hadn't been much explored. It doesn't contain any smut, bar some references to and discussions about the titular Winebearer's sex life, but gives some important context for what comes next.

They had left the cart a short distance from Moonspore's rickety pallisade wall. It sat just off the main horse-track, shadowed beneath one of the huge, pale fungi from which the village took its name. Smaller mushrooms clung to the ailing defenses and buildings beyond with equal vigour, sinking their tendrils deep into the crumbling stone and wood and turning the air damp and clammy with spores. Only a handful of figures stirred beyond the gate. Tired fungus-cutters slouched down the street towards the inn, unnoticed by the decrepit guardsman dozing atop the wall.

Winoa swallowed, shouldered a knapsack containing her few belongings, and set off down the track. Its three occupants paid her no notice at first. And why should they? From a distance she was just one more hunched figure, swaddled in a rough, hand-woven peasant's tunic, her pale, pretty features and bob of blonde hair lost in the shadows. They spoke quietly amongst themselves, their scaly features illuminated by the flickering glow of a smoke-twist. Kobolds, Winoa thought.

The cart came by every month or so. Moonspore lay within the territory of a powerful witch, who sent it with a handful of her minions to ensure taxes were collected and any messages she had for her people were delivered. Its flat rear was piled high with bundles of straw, food parcels, stone and other raw materials, topped off with the neatly-wrapped packages of mushroom flesh which comprised Moonspore's tithe. Two strong oxen were harnessed to the front, grunting in their harnesses beneath the driver's perch. They pawed at the ground, eager to be away.

Winoa couldn't blame them.

There were two others besides the driver. One stood at the rear of the cart, fiddling with an ill-fitting iron helmet as the last parcel was loaded aboard. As soon as it was in place he pulled a knife from his belt and cut it open, then shaved off a long slice of mushroom and snapped his reptilian jaws closed around it with obvious relish.

"Perks of the job, eh?" he said to his companion with a chuckle. "First pick of anything the townies have for us. That's the rule, right?"

Even from a distance, Winoa heard the third Kobold's disapproving growl. Sat atop the cargo, he aimed a stout kick at the thief's head, knocking his helmet off and sending the other Kobold tumbling to the ground.

"Perks is what the Queen gives you, Likiwit," he rasped. He was older than the others, his ash-grey hide gnarled and scarred from combat, with piercing yellow eyes and fangs that would have put a rocktiger to shame. "So show some respect. Don't go stealing."

"It wasn't stealing, Greyscale, honest! It was, uh, testing! For poison!" Likiwit protested, his thin, reedy voice carrying clearly down the road. "You knows what mushrooms is like, boss, half of them are - 'old up, who's that?"

Winoa froze as the three Kobolds turned to lock eyes on her. They were lanky creatures, like little crocodiles dressed up in faded black uniforms and battered tin-pot armour, with large wary eyes and a perpetual aura of restlessness. Tribes of them had existed in the badlands for centuries, where they had eked out a pitiful existence at the edge of civilisation, squabbling with each other and the human settlements there for enough scraps to survive.

Then the witch had come. She had recruited hundreds of the creatures as servants and soldiers, alongside nearly anyone - or anything, if the stories were true - willing to pledge themselves to her banner. Winoa eyed the three warily, swallowing down the tight knot of anxiety in her chest, and approached the one who had been named Greyscale. He watched her carefully from atop the cart, his nostrils flaring, content to hold his silence and let her make the first move.

"What'chu after, girl?" Likiwik interposed, flicking his tail back and forth and awkwardly pointing a cut-down pike at her chest. "We's was just about to head back to the castle. You's could be, uh, interruptin' royal business by coming up to bother us. That's a crime, you knows."

She glanced at Greyscale. The older Kobold's expression hadn't changed. He reminded her of a trio of mercenary adventurers who had passed through Moonspore years back; veteran soldiers, too grizzled by conflict to be truly afraid of anything, but too paranoid to discount it until he was sure there was no threat. Winoa carefully set her knapsack down and raised her hands to show they were empty.

"I want a job."

Likiwik looked nonplussed. The driver snorted and went back to his smoke-twist. Greyscale, however, raised one of his scaly brows thoughtfully.

"You want a job, eh?" His voice was low, like gravel crunching underfoot. He hopped down from his seat and took a step forwards, taking her in with an appraising gaze. "What kind of a job?"

"Anything you'll give me," Winoa replied. Greyscale clicked his tongue, drumming his claws on the side of the cart. He was taller than the other two, almost five feet in height, possessed of a wiry strength and an intensity in his eyes that made her shiver. Most Kobolds were cowardly creatures, thieves and salvagers who avoided violence whenever possible. Greyscale looked as though he thrived on it. "It can't be worse than working the fields here," she added.

"You might regret saying that. Queen Tenebra expects a lot from her servants. A lot of them can't handle it." Greyscale leaned closer, his lips pulling back in a snaggle-toothed grin. "Won't lie; she's a good mistress, pays well, quick and free with her favours when the mood takes her. But she's got her eccentricities. You're not afraid of the stories that they tell?"

Winoa blinked and pushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face. "People call her a witch, and I've heard that she bathes in the blood of virgins and eats children so she can steal their youth. But that can't be true because you're Kobolds, and old McAllister always told me that Kobolds can smell danger on the wind and are smart enough to start running before it arrives. And you work for her," she added pointedly. "So she can't be that bad."

Greyscale held her eyes for a few long heartbeats. Winoa held her breath, forcing herself not to be cowed by the Kobold's penetrating gaze. She could almost see his mind at work, chewing over angles, possibilities, dangers and rewards.

"You've got no trouble working with other races?" He said at last, picking something out from between his fangs as if to illustrate the point. "We don't get many humans up at the castle. Lot of our folk, mostly. Goblins too, and stranger things besides. You ever seen a demon before?"

Winoa shook her head.

"You will. Big on religion?"

She scoffed and glanced contemptuously back torwards Moonspore. The village's rotting church hall loomed in the distance, half-consumed by the towering fungus which had erupted from its bell tower. "Not so much."

Finally Greyscale let out a snort of laughter and nodded.

"Alright then," he said, snatching up her knapsack and tossing it onto the cart. "Can't promise nothing, but I reckon the Queen'll give you an audience at the very least. We'll take you back and see what she says. If the answer's no, you can sleep in the dungeons until someone's available to bring you home. How's that sound?"

"Like it's the best deal I'm going to get." Winoa clambered up after her belongings at sat them on her knee. "You won't regret this, I promise."

The Kobold chuckled as he followed. "I won't, but you might. Zhrek! Get us moving!"

There was the snap of a whip and the cart lurched into motion, rattling and squeaking as it turned away from Moonspore and began the long journey up through the mountains. Winoa watched in silence as Moonspore slowly retreated into the horizon, finally becoming lost from view as they entered a dense forest of bleak, scrubby trees. She stared at the point where it had been for a few more seconds before turning her back to the little hamlet with a contended sigh. Likiwit and the driver - who's name she learned was Tizok - sat up front, while Greyscale slouched at the head of the cart, his back resting against their perch and his clawed feet propped up on the cargo.

"So, what put this idea in your head?" He asked. Though his heavy-lidded gaze still followed her wherever she went, Greyscale's expression had softened. He chewed the end of an unlit smoke-twist as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Like I said, it's not often we get humans asking to serve the dread lady in person. Most of 'em come begging for some favour or another. You running away from something?"

Winoa glanced down at her hands. "I don't see how that's your business," she said. "I'm looking for work, that's all."

Likiwik took a sharp breath and glanced fearfully back over his shoulder. Greyscale tipped his head to one side, an unwholsome grin on his face.

"It's my business because I'm Queen Tenebra's - well, the titles change so much. But you can think of me as her viceroy. Her military advisor. War-leader, flag-bearer." His grin broadened. "End of the day it's my job to keep her friends alive and her enemies dead, and that means if she takes you on, your troubles becomes our troubles. So out with it. Or you can get off here and find your own way home."

Winoa sighed. She had hoped to avoid this. Already she could feel warmth spreading across her face. "It was - there was a scandal. Moonspore is very traditional, and - there isn't much there except the mushrooms. I wanted to earn some money, more than I was getting waiting tables at the inn. Maybe enough to move into one of the cities. So I - well, I - "

"Joined the ranks of barmaids up and down the land who serve customers at the table and in the alley?" Greyscale interrupted. Winoa pursed her lips, feeling the blush of embarrassment spreading from her cheeks to her ears. The Kobold opened his mouth to reply but was swiftly cut off.

"It's so stupid! What else was I going to do?" She snapped. The old argument lept to her lips, as fresh and furious as when she had angrily presented it to her enraged father. "Marry some toothless mushroom-picker, pump out a brace of kids and then go fat and old and senile? Bat my eyelashes at the mayor's son and spend the rest of my life staring at soggy mushrooms all day as some kept woman? I'm not going to be - to be lambasted for wanting more than that out of life!"

"Besides," she added, her voice fading as the surge of anger dimmed. "Once news got around, nobody would give me a second look. Not even the men I'd - entertained. Hypocrites," she snorted. "My Da was on the verge of shipping me off to a convent. I don't know if this Tenebra is a queen or a witch or worse, but she's got to be better than that."

When she next looked up, she found Greyscale nodding thoughtfully. "Well you've got the fire, that's for sure. And an open mind." He clicked his tongue. "That'll count in your favour. Tenebra ain't got much time for prudes, not unless she thinks they're funny or too useful to replace."

He let out a raspy sigh and settled back. "Don't much sound like that'll be a problem though. You might as well get comfortable, girl. We've got a way to go yet."

\---

The castle was enormous. It jutted out from the rocky crags which surrounded it like a broken tombstone, slab-sided and terrifying in its immensity. The wind carried strange, undulating shrieks and cries down from the mountains as lightning flashed across a sky heavy with bruised clouds and circling avian predators. The three Kobolds hissed and sighed in relief as the looming fortress came into view, obviously happy to be home. Winoa had to fight not to shrink deeper into her tunic. At least it isn't the convent, she told herself.

Small cairns lined the winding path up the mountain, each topped with painted rocks, hand-made jewelry and other nicknacks. Likiwit explained they were offerings left by the tribespeople who lived in its shadow and worshiped Tenebra as a goddess in the hopes of drawing her attention. Patrols of Kobolds, Goblins and other creatures Winoa had no name for saluted Greyscale as they passed.

As they drew closer, though, she could see the fortress was not as barren as she had first thought. Angular markings covered its outer walls, too regular and too deeply carved into the rock to be some quirk of geology. Shadowed figures moved behind windows set with brightly-tinted stained glass, while torches burned along its upper ramparts and illuminated the huge oak and steel gate which awaited them.

"Alright. Here's our stop," Greyscale rasped as the cart trundled inside. What little light there was in the badlands had long faded from the sky, and the courtyard beyond was largely lost to shadow. Teams of underlings descended on the cart like locusts as they were hurried inside, stripping the cargo and hurrying it away to places unseen. "Queen Tenebra's holding court, so we'll take you straight to her. Won't take her long to decide, it never does."

Tenebra's castle might have been barren from the outside, but within its cold grey walls was very different. Lavish drapes and carpets lined the corridors, worn in places but still stubbornly displaying their faded grandeur for all to see. Mismatched chandeliers and candelabras filled the halls with light, while a myriad of voices raised in laughter and argument echoed from the rooms they passed by. Winoa tried to count the number of languages she overheard, but swiftly gave up. Her head was spinning; it was too much to take in, too quickly.

The corridors became wider and grander as they progressed towards the main hall, and Winoa soon realised she was sweating in her tunic. She had always imagined a castle would be cold, but there was a warmth in the air that seemed far too comfortable to come from the candles alone. When she asked about the source, Greyscale just smirked.

"It's an enchantment. Keeps things nice and comfortable. When you see what some of the serving girls here wear, you'll understand."

Winoa just nodded, still trying to find her bearings. Less than two days ago, her world had ended at Moonspore's outer walls. The idea she might aspire to anything better than a life amidst its dank, fungus-infested streets had been a glimmer of a dream. But now? Her heart raced, and with every step they took towards the main hall, the urge to grin became harder to resist. Now she was surrounded by the kind of luxury she could scarcely have imagined in her youth.

The thought was driven out of her head as they turned a final corner and came face to face with...something. It was huge and blue-black, with the rough shape of a man, albeit once twice the usual height and many times as broad. He stood before an ornate redwood door carved with an ethereal woman's face, two arms holding a greatsword that could have hacked a warhorse in two at rest while a second pair of limbs clasped meditatively over its chest. It turned its blunt, antlered head towards them, two dark little eyes twinking with intelligence above a shifting mess of finger-sized mandibles, and raised one of its secondary arms in greeting.

"Ben," Greyscale nodded respectfully. "All quiet in our absence?"

"Quiet it has been," the creature replied. "Dare I say, unusually so? It is unlike our mistress to linger in stillness for so long. But, ah, who is this? A newcomer to our estate?"

It - he - stooped down on one knee. Winoa's gut clenched in fear, but she forced herself to meet the creature's eyes. They were almost human, she realised with a sudden jolt. "I'm - Winoa Gerhart," she said. "I'm here looking for a job."

"Then you come here under more auspicious circumstances than most. You may know me as Syr Benedict Cervus, Queen Tenebra's first knight, captain of her guard and sworn protector." Benedict extended one of his secondary hands in greeting. It was still large enough to engulf the hand Winoa tentatively offered, which he brushed gently against his rough brow in the way a man might kiss a lady's hand. "Will you be taking our guest in, Greyscale?"

"Nah. I'm gonna go ahead, make sure Tenebra's ready to receive guests first." The Kobold shot Winoa a sideways grin. "No point throwing the girl in at the deep end if she's already entertaining." 

"As you will," Benedict said. Greyscale nodded and slipped past, opening the door a crack and vanishing through. Ben rose with a clatter of chitinous plates and returned to his position, his antennae twitching towards the portal behind. Winoa watched him carefully, but it was impossible to tell what the giant beetle-man might be thinking. Beyond his eyes and bipedal stance, there was nothing remotely human about him. She shifted uncomfortably, tugging at the collar of her rough tunic.

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Benedict chuckled. "Be at ease. You will see many strange things here if the Queen takes you onto her staff, but fear not. She has a way with people, and even the most lost and tormented of souls can find a home within these walls. A girl as pretty as yourself will have no trouble." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It might be welcome, perhaps, to have another human upon the grounds. As a touchstone for those of us who are less than we were."

"At ease. Okay. Ease." Winoa took a deep breath, fighting down her nerves. "How should I address her?" She asked suddenly. "Greyscale mentioned there were titles, and that the changed all the time, but he didn't say what they were."

"Ah, a thorny subject. The Queen is a creature of..." Benedict paused, his mandibles shifting silently for a moment. "Whimsy. She freely alters our titles to suit her moods. The duties are rarely altered, only the term she attaches to them. Some two months ago I was the High Carnifex. Now, if I recall correctly, my title is Lord-Protector."

He looked down, his eyes twinkling with something Winoa thought was amusement. "In truth it matters little so long as you speak to us with respect. And if you have any doubts about how to speak to our Queen, no matter what mask she wears, never have I heard her take offense to 'mistress' or 'my lady'."

Winoa nodded her thanks. She was about to open her mouth again when a strong, lilting female voice rang out from the door beyond.

"Benedict? Dear heart, do send our new guest in. I'm rather eager to see what Greyscale has for me."

"Aha. Well, it doesn't pay to keep one's lady waiting." The Lord-Protector stood aside with a chitinous rattle and opened the door. "Best of luck, little one. I shall keep what fingers I have crossed for you."

Winoa nodded and crept past, wincing as the door slammed shut once more. The main hall opened up like the mouth of a cave, vast and dark. A long red carpet stretched out into the gloom beyond the entryway, crawling up the steps which led to a raised dias set against the far wall. At its peak sat a graven throne, atop which Winoa could make out the slender form of a tall, regal woman, her features lost to the pervasive shadows which haunted the echoing chamber.

"Come forwards. Let me see you."

The voice came out of nowhere and seemed to linger in the air for far longer than it should have done. Winoa quailed, her blood turning to ice. Once past the fortress' bleak exterior, it had seemed almost welcoming; full of light and colour and beauty. But this dark place left her shivering despite the lingering warmth and wondering what manner of being she had come to pledge herself to.

She took a hesitant step forwards. A low, womanly chuckle echoed out of the darkness, rich and full of amusement. Behind the throne Winoa could make out two other figures; the first must surely have been Greyscale, though the other looked human.

"That's it. A little further. I won't bite."

Slowly Winoa made her way down the carpet. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she saw the walls were lined with towering statues. Each depicted the same woman locked in what at first seemed to be mortal combat with a variety of strange and terrible beasts. Some Winoa recognised from stories she had heard as a child; orcs, saurians, minotaurs. Others were beyond classification, appearing as little more than heaving mounds of teeth and tentacles.

It was only as she reached the foot of the dias that Winoa realised the figures were not fighting, but embracing. Their cold stone faces were locked in grimaces of ecstacy rather than fury, their limbs grasping rather than grappling. But in each the female figure reigned supreme, leaving her marble and granite partners humbled and submissive before her. 

The moment Winoa placed her foot upon the first step, the world exploded. Braziers built atop the dais and by the feet of each statue roared into life, gouting forth great plumes of sorcerous green fire that filled the chamber with sound and light. Winoa screamed and jumped back, protecting her face with her hands and scrambling for the entrance.

When an attack failed to manifest, she slowed; when she heard the woman's riotous laughter at her back, she halted. Winoa glanced over her shoulder to see the figure atop the throne sprawled backwards and howling with amusement. "Did - did you see that, Francis? She almost leapt right out of her skin! Oh I knew she would fall for it, the first time always gets them!"

The flames swiftly died down and lost their unholy tint, now crackling merrily in their iron cages. Queen Tenebra - for it could be nobody else, Winoa assumed - regained a portion of her composure and sat back straight again, though it was clear she was fighting to keep a smile from breaking out across her sculpted face. She wore a long, black gown, slitted so deeply at the thighs and chest it was reduced to little more than a silky black V-shape which covered her breasts and trailed down enticingly between her legs. Greyscale stood next to her smirking, while the second figure - an unusually lightly-built orc - shot Winoa an apologetic look and rolled his eyes.

"She very nearly hit the ceiling, dreadful one," the orc said. "But I dare say you permitted her to enter for more than just a practical joke?"

Tenebra sighed. "Of course, of course. Winoa, I believe? Greyscale informs me you're looking for work."

"Yes ma - my lady," Winoa said. She turned and approached the throne once more, offering the dark queen at its peak a curtsy in greeting. "I'm a hard worker, I'm honest and not squeamish at all. I don't mind what work you give me so long as it pays a decent wage and doesn't have anything to do with bloody mushrooms."

Tenebra rubbed her narrow chin thoughtfully. "Indeed? Come up here. Greyscale tells me you worked at the inn?"

Winoa glanced sideways at the Kobold, wondering just how much he had told her. His return look was perfectly expressionless, leaving Winoa to push ahead blindly.

"That's correct, my lady," she said, nervously climbing the steps as Tenebra beckoned her closer.

"So you know how to mix drinks? Serve customers to their, hmm, satisfaction?" The other woman's eye twinkled. "And you're literate, yes? You can read and write?"

"Yes, my lady. To all of those."

"Hmmm." Tenebra reached out as Winoa came before the throne, catching the girl's chin between her thumb and forefinger. She turned her head this way and that, examining Winoa's face from every angle. "You're a pretty thing, that's for certain, and possessed of a suitably adventurous nature. The clothes will have to go, of course, one should never display lillies in a broken pot. But yes, I think we can find a use for you."

Winoa's heart leapt. "Really? Thank you, my lady, I promise you I'll - "

"Ah, ah, ah." Tenebra held up a long finger and pressed it to Winoa's lips. "Not just yet."

Seizing a handful of Winoa's clothes, Tenebra pulled the girl closer. "Tell me something," she whispered. "Tell me what it was like, with those men outside the inn. What did you feel? Did you enjoy it?"

Winoa swallowed. Only inches away, Tenebra smelled of brimstone and lavender. Her icy features were alight with a sudden and terrible passion, her eyes burning with hunger. Her mind raced, struggling for an answer, becoming tangled in all the lies she had told her father in the hopes of mitigating his outrage. A small gasp slipped from her mouth as the dark queen tightened her grip and drew her in closer, until Tenebra's black-painted lips almost brushed her own.

"Be honest. With me, with yourself," Tenebra said. "In this place of all places, you don't have to hide from such feelings."

"I - I liked it. I loved it," Winoa gasped. "The way they looked at me, the way they were so desperate to have me over their wives and girlfriends that they would throw down money to do so. The feeling of them inside me. Their taste in my mouth. Even though I knew people would be angry if they found out." She blinked, surprised at the words coming out of her mouth. "Maybe even because they would have been angry. It felt good to - to spit on their obsession with purity. I think I would have done it even if I didn't need the money. It felt good. What other reason do you need?"

Silence reigned. Winoa felt like something had been lifted from her shoulders. She watched Tenebra carefully, waiting for a reply, content to enjoy the strange new feeling of contentment which had settled upon her.

"What reason indeed?" Tenebra smiled and released Winoa, then guestured to the orc. "There will be a place for you here, I think. Francis, see that our guest is quartered and instructed in her new duties. Find her some new clothes while you're at it, would you? We'll start her in something sheer and white."

She reclined in her throne, steepling her fingers and scrutinising Winoa over their delicate peak.

"You shall be my winebearer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written February 2020


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winoa begins to adjust to life under Queen Tenebra, and comes to assist her and the Forest King in performing a magical rite to strengthen the dark lady's kingdom.

It was not unusual for Winoa to be called upon late at night. Though Queen Tenebra favoured her winebearer enough to give her the occasional day off, she was known to entertain guests at any hour of the day and thus her servants had to be ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. So it was no great surprise when she was awoken at close to midnight by a sharp rap at the door and rough words calling her to service.

"The Dread Lady's calling for you. Make yourself presentable and get up to her quick, she's in the east tower library."

"Whu - wha's she want?" Winoa yawned blearily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the back of her hand. "Winebearer can't bear wine without knowing what wine to bear."

The words came out in a tangled slurry as she swung her slim legs over the edge of her straw bed. Her chambers were rather modest, with little more than her cot in one corner, a dresser in the other and a small bookshelf in against the wall in between, but they were clean and dry and as far as Winoa was concerned that was luxury enough. She kicked off her smallclothes and stumbled over to the dresser, picking one of the diaphanous tunics which made up her uniform at random and shrugging it on.

"She just wants you, girl. No wine tonight." There was a chuckle from the other side of the door. "So I guess you must have been very very good lately...or done something very very bad. Ain't right, a servant wearing that much jewellery. Sure you ain't been stealing?"

Winoa racked her brains, trying to figure out who the speaker was as she pulled on a set of golden armbands and anklets. Grukk, by the sound of it. The gnarled old hobgoblin had never particularly liked her, nor any other of the handful of humans who worked for the Dread Lady. "Oh, I'm sure," she called back, irritably tugging a worn ivory brush through her fluffy blond hair. "The Dread Lady won't have her favoured servants looking any less than their best, after all. Maybe one day she'll be able to spare something for the grunts like yourself."

There was an angry huff from the corridor. "East tower library. Don't keep her waiting," the voice repeated before stomping away, leaving Winoa to glance at her mirror and smirk victoriously. Content that nothing was too far out of place, she slipped from her chambers and into the castle.

Bleakstone Fortress never really slept. Work gangs laboured around the clock to ensure the creaking old ruin was properly maintained and suitably decorated, and the halls rang to the ever-present footsteps of guardsmen and soldiers on patrol. A handful waved or called greetings as she passed, which the young woman graciously returned as she made her way up the winding corridors towards the east tower. Others simply stared appreciatively, which in Winoa's mind was no less welcome. She knew she was pretty, with delicate features that could be quite at odds with her temper and a comely body which rarely failed to turn heads.

Combined with her...accommodating nature, it was little surprise the young woman was a regular staple at Tenebra's frequent, lavish orgies and a favourite of those soldiers unable to get the time off to visit a brothel. The extra coin she made from that helped pay for her growing collection of books. One day, Winoa thought, once she was as clever and educated as Francis, Tenebra might see fit to give her something to do beyond carrying pots of wine around and looking pretty.

The orgies could stay, mind. Winoa did enjoy those.

The east library was one of the oldest and smallest. In truth, it was more of a store than a library, used to keep those volumes Tenebra had little practical use for but for one reason or another refused to dispose of. Three of the craggy stone walls were hidden behind groaning, overburdened shelves, the volumes they held overgrown with cobwebs and blooms of pale mould. The fourth sheltered a small reading desk situated beneath the room's solitary window. Clouds circled outside, swollen and heavy with the threat of rain.

Winoa found Queen Tenebra there, pouring over a faded paper scroll which lay unfurled across the desk. She was a tall woman, as smooth and pale as a statue wrought from the finest marble, clad in a simple black gown which clung to her willowy figure like a second skin. It was odd, Winoa thought, to see her dressed so plainly. For a moment she lingered in the doorway, until the dark lady seemed to grow aware of her presence and silently beckoned her to enter.

"I am here, mistress," she said. "You called for me?"

"Mmm. I did." Tenebra murmured, distracted. She frowned, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the parchment, then let out a small sigh and rose elegantly from the desk. "I have a task for you, Winoa. One of utmost importance, which can be trusted to no other. Ideally I would perform it myself, but it requires the sacrifice of something which I abandoned many years ago."

Sacrifice? Winoa hesitated for a moment, her pride at having been selected for such an important duty suddenly quashed by the anxiety of what she might actually have to do. But the prospect of advancement within Tenebra's labyrinthine court steeled her nerves. This, she thought, could be it. Her moment.

"I am yours, my queen," she said, looking the dark lady in the eye and holding her voice steady. "But I don't understand - what can I do that you can't?"

Tenebra laughed once, softly, under her breath. She was beautiful, Winoa thought - her features sharp and regal, the elegant sweep of her cheekbones softened by bright, playful eyes and full lips. "It isn't what you can do, my winebearer. It is what you would have to give up." She smiled, the expression strange and coy. "Namely, your innocence."

"Innocence?" Winoa blinked. Of all the things she had expected Tenebra to say, that had been the last. "My lady, I - I wasn't exactly a maid when you took me on, and the things I've done since then - "

"Were still, in the grand scheme of things, rather mundane. Oh, you've taken two or three men at once during the revels, dabbled a little outside your own kind, and I know you perform favours for the guards in exchange for coin. No, no," Tenebra waved away Winoa's flustered protest. "I don't disapprove. In fact, you have my blessing to continue. They do get rather tense, and sadly it would be...inappropriate to soothe them all in person. In your old home these things would have caused an uproar, but here, they are..."

"Everyday facts of life?" Winoa suggested, raising her eyebrows suggestively. Tenebra's eyes flashed with amusement.

"Yes! Yes, exactly," she said, forcing down a wide grin. "There are grades of innocence, and few of my courtiers hold onto theirs for long. You, fortunately, retain enough for my needs."

Winoa nodded. She could see where this was going. "And you need me to give it up. Right. Okay. Who do you want me to fuck?"

The other woman snorted with laughter. It was strange, Winoa thought. She had never seen her queen act so casually. Oh, she was trying to hide it with the same skill she applied to all the roles she played, but away from her court and her throne something seemed to have slipped.

And then it was gone, hidden once more behind a knowing look and a coy smile. Tenebra gestured towards the reading table. The scroll was covered in arcane sigils, knotted over and around one another in twisting, circular patterns. At its centre she recognised a crude pictogram of a female figure.

"I don't know the first thing about magic," Winoa said, "but those symbols are different to what's carved into Ix's cell, right? So whatever this is, it's got nothing to do with demons."

"Very good," Tenebra said. "No, this is fae script. The scroll describes a piece of very old, very powerful magic, hinged upon a bargain struck between mortal and fae powers. Put simply you might think of it as a fertility rite used to bless a region. Fields would give up more crops, childbirth would become easier, illnesses more easily shrugged off. Given in exchange for a mortal woman's innocence." She gave Winoa a piercing look. "I am nothing if not a generous queen, and you understand how much this would benefit my subjects."

Winoa did know. She had grown up in Moonspore, one of the sad, impoverished hamlets which clung to Tenebra's petty fiefdom for protection. Life there had been short, hard and unpleasant, and she very much doubted it was different anywhere else.

"So it's a fae, right? I didn't think there were any around here. Aside from those sprites."

"And they lack both the power and attention span for such works, correct. No, I have had this in my possession for a long time, but lacked either a fae being or a sufficiently innocent woman in my service. This is the first time I have had both." Tenebra paused for a moment. Winoa held her breath. She could sense her queen was building up to something - not quite mustering her courage, but considering her words with great care.

"You have met the Forest King, yes?"

"The wolf?" Winoa asked. It was a huge thing, burly and savage, with midnight-black fur and all manner of barbs and quills bristling in its coat. "Yes, I - well, no. I've seen it, seen him passing through the grounds on occasion, but never up close. Why?"

Tenebra remained silent. The colour drained from Winoa's face. "Oh. Oh, no. No, no no. That's, um, that's a bit too far. I'm not - I'm not fucking that thing."

"Why not?" Tenebra asked. Her tone was soft and placid, almost curious. "Is it so strange?"

"Yes! It's an animal! Or - I don't know, it's close enough! You don't - people don't do that!"

"I already have. Several times, in fact," Tenebra remarked blandly. "And I can assure you, whatever form he takes, the Forest King is far more intelligent than most mortals. Limited in vision, perhaps. He cares about very little. But he knows himself, and his wants, and what he does when he acts upon them."

Silence reigned. Winoa felt as though her legs were about to give out from under her. She wobbled and sat down heavily on a stack of old boxes, throwing up a plume of thick dust that hung in the air between the two women. Neither spoke until it had settled.

"Why?" Winoa asked. "I mean - I've heard the stories. All the servants have. That you summon demons and lie with them for pleasure, pay favours to a nation of lizards who walk like men and sleep with the ambassadors who come to you seeking an audience. I never cared about any of that, but - "

She fell silent again. Part of her still couldn't believe what she had heard. The idea of her queen, hunched on all fours beneath a great, black wolf, was so strange and alien that it refused to take form in her head. How could someone so regal, she thought, so dignified, stoop to such levels? It was wrong. Perverse. Impossible.

Tenebra sighed. She stared up at the ceiling as she gathered her thoughts, drumming her fingers pensively against her desk.

"Why not?" she said eventually. "No source of pleasure, Winoa, should be refused, no matter how strange it might seem at first glance. Nothing is forbidden. Nothing is taboo, at least so long as all are in agreement, and I can assure you, the Forest King is most vigorous in showing his consent. There are gods who disapprove of such things, but they have been silent for a long time now, and their commandments made little enough sense even when they were enforced."

The dark lady reached over, placing a hand on Winoa's bare shoulder. "I've followed your development here with great interest, Winoa. You are, like me, a being who strives for pleasure in all things, who relishes the chance to bestowing it as much as she enjoys receiving it. Am I correct?"

Winoa knew herself too well to lie. Tenebra had seen through to the truth of her from their first meeting. She glanced up at the other woman and, for the briefest of moments, felt a sudden and all-consuming terror at the sight of the pale, serene figure staring back. It was so easy to look at Tenebra and see nothing more than the pantomime she was so fond of or the debauchery she wallowed in. It was so easy to miss the intelligence, the cunning, the awesome magical potential which seethed beneath her ivory skin.

And so she merely nodded silently, the cold, leaden weight in her stomach strangling any attempt at speech. Because Tenebra was right. She was a sexual being. She always had been, from her clandestine experimentation with the boys in her village, to her clumsy first forays into prostitution and her eager participation in Tenebra's orgies. It was like an itch in the back of her head which refused to be scratched, silently demanding more, more, more.

"Exactly. And you crave more, but you hold yourself back. You limit yourself by clinging to taboos that ceased to have any meaning when you joined my court. Understand that this is not a criticism. Most people who step up to the edge of a cliff hesitate before leaping off. But," she placed a finger under Winoa's chin, raising the girl's head until their eyes met. "Sometimes, that leap is necessary. After all, how else can a bird learn to fly?"

"What - what if I say no?"

Tenebra shrugged a narrow shoulder. "Nothing. You will go back to your duties and life will continue. Nothing will change, for better or worse, for yourself or my subjects. Perhaps you might wonder, in the cold nights, what might have happened had you agreed, but that is outwith my control."

"And - " Winoa swallowed hard, choking down the tight knot of anxiety in her gut. "And if I say yes?"

"We will conduct the rite. The day after tomorrow, I think. Tracking the Forest King down can take time. You will lie with him, as I lay with him, and then..." the ghost of a smile flickered over Tenebra's face. "We will see if I am as good a teacher as I fancy myself as. Consider it an induction into the higher mysteries of my court, if that pleases you."

Time seemed to stretch. Winoa stared into Tenebra's clever green eyes for what felt like an eternity before giving her answer.

"Yes."

\---

Bleakstone Fortress was aptly named. It sat within a savage tangle of peaks and sheer cliffs, barren of all but the hardiest and most stubborn forms of life. The territories which lay beyond were little better - arable land was thin and patchy, and much of the landscape itself had been twisted by strange forms of magic and aberrant flora. Winoa had been raised in the hardscrabble poverty of such an environment and assumed the rest of Tenebra's domain was little different.

So it came as a surprise to find herself at the borders of a lush woodland. Tall, proud beeches and oaks rose up from the barren earth, their trunks skirted by dense mats of ferns and linked by trailing creepers. The fresh scent of wet, green things hung invitingly in the air and long blades of grasp tickled Winoa's thighs as she walked cautiously forwards and peered into the emerald maze before her. It seemed lighter here as well - the pervasive gloom which hung over the region had abated, bathing the forest's borders in a warm, golden glow.

A small cart sat at her back. The journey had taken hours, winding and doubling back through dozens of suicidally narrow passes, but Bleakstone still loomed in the near distance. Whatever this place was, Winoa thought, Tenebra obviously wanted its location kept secret. She doubted even Francis would be able to retrace the path they had taken to get here. Greyscale lounged in the driver's seat, a smoke-twist clenched in his narrow jaws. He caught her eye as she glanced back and gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.

Too far to back out now, Winoa thought. Every moment they had ridden through the mountains had torn her with doubt and anxiety. She felt as though she was being pulled in two directions at once - between her hesitation, her fear of breaking the taboos which bound her old community together, and the hungers service at Tenebra's court had inspired. Every flicker of excitement was curdled by a reflexive spasm of fear. Every self-conscious worry competed with a surge of anticipation.

Five bright lights circled overhead as she stepped forwards. The sprites were whimsical and easily distracted creatures, but certainly intelligent enough to serve as guides. They flittered between the trees, their wings buzzing merrily, laughing and singing as they led Winoa deeper into the forest and on to her fate.

It wasn't long before Winoa noticed something was wrong. No, she thought; not wrong, just...odd. The canopy overhead was so dense she could barely see the sky, but the forest remained as warm and bright as if she was standing under the noonday sun. Plants seemed to flex and twist quite at odds with the gentle breeze which stirred the air, moving out of her path and turning to admire her as she passed them by. From time to time Winoa would have even sworn she saw faces in the bark which surrounded her, with sharp, twiggy noses and curious knothole eyes.

"It's magic," she said, glancing up at the spites. "Isn't it? This whole forest is magical."

One of them, its tiny, feminine body haloed with sparkling blue light, simply giggled and waved her on further.

Soon Winoa found the trees thinning enough to offer glimpses of the sky. Something seemed to shimmer in the air - a ripple that was more felt than seen, sharpening Winoa's senses and hastening her steps. A few more meters and the treeline ended, opening up to reveal a broad clearing split down the middle by a bubbling stream. Tenebra stood at its banks, clad in a long, white robe and holding the ritual scroll in her hands, next to a smooth-topped altar and -

Winoa's heart stopped. Even sitting on his hind legs, the Forest King was huge. He easily came up to Tenebra's shoulder and seemed almost more bear than wolf, his enormous body rippling with stocky muscle and criss-crossed by dozens of old scars. Fangs as long as her fingers jutted from the spirit's muzzle, and his inky-black fur rippled with rows of quills running down his back and the length of his tail. He turned as she broke the treeline, his ears pricking up as his eyes, golden-yellow and full of malevolent intelligence, locked on hers.

The winebearer's courage almost failed her then and there. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to run - to flee back into the trees like a frightened doe, to be chased down by this, this predator, this ancient and hungry thing, to be caught and pushed into the earth and -

Devoured? Mounted?

She moaned softly, her mind twisting itself into a knot of fear and arousal and guilt. It was only when Tenebra placed a hand on the Forest King's head and beckoned her to approach that Winoa found the strength to stumble forwards, unable to tear her eyes away from the looming, black-furred creature which awaited her.

Her sex pulsed, a hot throb of arousal suddenly striking her unbidden, so intense it was almost painful. Winoa faltered and would have fallen had Tenebra not caught her arm and pulled her back to her feet.

For a moment the two women simply stared at each other. "What - what is this place?" Winoa whispered.

Tenebra lifted her head, looking out over the clearing. "A font of magic," she said, lowering her hood. A garland of flowers sat upon her brow, bright blue and yellow against her dark hair. "A wellspring, if you like. Pure and untainted, sacred in a way few chapels can ever be." Her tone was soft and almost reverential. "The lines between woman, spirit and beast become blurred in places like this. You felt it for a moment, didn't you?"

"I felt...something," Winoa agreed.

"Here, our instincts come to the fore. Reason and logic have less power." Tenebra ran her fingers through the Forest King's coat, eliciting a low rumble of pleasure from the great beast. "Just as they, in turn, become a little more like us. In ancient times these sites would have been places of communion, where emissaries from different worlds would come to meet." She smiled for a moment. "I suppose today we are reigniting that tradition."

"That's one way of putting it," Winoa mumbled under her breath. She glanced at the Forest King again. "So how are we - how does this work? How did you...was it on all fours?"

Tenebra smiled coyly. "Eager to be underway?"

The Forest King shifted restlessly, his tail flicking from side to side. His claws were more akin to talons, gouging shallow divots in the earth where he sat, and between them Winoa could just make out the tip of the great wolf's cock peeking from his sheath, bright pink amidst fluffy black. His coat looked softer there, she noticed, invitingly so. For a moment she imagined running her hands through the silky fur, feeling the beast's heavy, eager breaths beneath her fingers as she lapped at his shaft.

Winoa swallowed. There was a familiar heat building in her belly. Not the treacherous stab of pleasure that had struck her earlier, but the slow-swelling burn of genuine lust. She realised she was panting and fought to control herself.

"Just - just want to know what I have to do," she said. "So the ritual doesn't get messed up."

"Of course," Tenebra said, accepting the lie without pause. "For what it's worth, yes, the first time I took him it was on all fours. You will have to lie atop the altar, so the experience will be somewhat different. All that is required is that you bring him to completion, which I doubt will be greatly difficult."

The altar was perhaps a meter and a half in length, smoothly rounded like a stone plucked from the beach and carved with the same looping whorls she had seen upon Tenebra's scroll. A small divot had been cut near the closest edge, leading to a channel which emptied into a simple earthen bowl placed by its base.

"For capturing his issue," Tenebra explained. "At the culmination of the rite."

"Oh," Winoa said. "Lovely. Do I just hop on up, then?"

"You might wish to undress first," Tenebra smirked. Then she raised a hand and let her fingers dance through the air. The ground shook and a twisting vine sprouted towards her palm, looping around it and twisting into a crown. The same blue and yellow flowers which decorated Tenebra's brow sprouted across it in a bloom of colour. "And wear this."

"Is that part of the rite?" Winoa asked doubtfully. Before leaving, she had exchanged her fragile, gossamer servant's gown for plain garments more suitable for travel, and as she undressed found herself almost glad to be rid of them. Her golden jewellery remained, shining brightly on her naked limbs, as a token nod to her own vanity. The Forest King cocked his head, and for a moment the winebearer wondered if the great spirit appreciated the sight of them. 

"Oh, no, not at all. But one must always look the part." The queen's eyes glittered with amusement. "No matter what."

She offered the crown to Winoa, who took it silently. She turned it over in her hands, staring at the curling, still-living vines, before slowly placing it atop her blonde head.

The Forest King growled in approval, the sound low and volcanic. Despite everything Winoa managed a smirk.

"Well, I'm glad you appreciate it. Okay." She took a short breath. "Let's do this."

As Tenebra led her servant to the altar, Winoa remembered something about her queen's attire. Once, when she was very young, a trio of druids had come to her hamlet to study the bloated fungi which grew there. They had kept themselves to themselves, speaking of theories about the monstrous growths being influenced by phases of the moon before departing, but they had dressed in hooded robes very similar to that which Tenebra wore. The dark lady was known for her expansive library of garments, of course. And such robes were hardly unique to druidic orders. But Winoa wondered.

As she climbed up onto the ritual stone, something caught Winoa's eye. Shapes were moving around the edge of the clearing; sleek, lupine shapes, perhaps half a dozen, their eyes glowing with pale fire. The paced around the periphery, slowly drifting closer until they stood restlessly upon the other side of the river, their haunting gaze locked upon the trio. Winoa gave her queen a worried look, who offered a reassuring smile in return.

"His pack," Tenebra explained, inclining her head towards the Forest King. "He awakened them, gifting a handful of the native beasts here a portion of his intelligence. Like him they know themselves, understand reason and speech, and serve most excellently as guardians of this place."

"Is that all they serve as?" Winoa raised an eyebrow. Tenebra offered no reply but a faint smile, and once she was sure Winoa was set in place over the waiting channel, stepped smoothly out of the way and unfurled her scroll. The altar was warm and smooth beneath the winebearer's naked buttocks, and for a moment Winoa could almost imagine herself laying back and dozing off under the balmy sun above.

And then the Forest King stepped forwards.

Winoa's stomach lurched. This was it, she thought. Again she felt the urge to flee boiling up inside, her mind seething with the hapless terror of a million doomed prey animals. A glance towards Tenebra quelled it. Her queen had done this. She had even enjoyed the experience. Winoa resolved she would as well.

Taking a breath to steady herself, Winoa leaned back and spread her legs, shamelessly baring her sex to the approaching wolf. The first faint drops of arousal clung there already, glimmering softly in the light, and the Forest King's nose twitched as he caught her scent. He advanced with sedate arrogance, muscles rolling beneath his thick coat, and the winebearer could feel his eyes drinking in the sight of her splayed out and ready. A faint tremor of lust ran down her spine at the thought, and she moaned softly as the great spirit leaned in to sniff her outstretched leg.

"That's it," she whispered. "Come on, come on, before I change my mind..."

She could see him, his hardness, hanging between his rear legs. Smooth and pinkish-red, wrapped in a lattice of delicate purple veins, the Forest King's cock was like nothing she had seen before. It was huge, far larger than anything she had taken before, and the idea that it was minutes away from sinking into her, knotting her, filling her full of his animal seed...

Winoa shuddered again. She didn't know if it was from fear or excitement. There was a nobility to him, she thought; he was proud and cruel in equal measure. For a moment she imagined him as some manner of foreign prince, broad and heavily-set, his brooding features hidden behind a thick black beard. Perhaps that would have been easier, but the image soon vanished. Only the wolf remained.

The Forest King prowled closer, his fur tickling against her bare skin as he closed the last few steps. A puff of warm air ghosted over the winebearer's sex as he sniffed her, and she let out a sharp cry as the cold point of his nose brushed against her lips. But even that was nothing compared to what she felt as he opened his fanged maw and licked.

The first stroke was like lightning; a revelation, driving the last persistent doubts from her mind. The Forest King's tongue was far larger and thicker than a man's, and he used it with a selfish, greedy enthusiasm which left Winoa wracked and helpless with pleasure. She cried out again and clung tight to the edge of the ritual stone, her curvaceous hips bucking and shuddering as the great wolf tasted her sex. Each sweep of his tongue parted her labia before lapping up to flick cruelly against her clit, leaving her breathless and shaking.

It was almost too intense, too pleasurable. Winoa jerked back, struggling to catch her breath, only to force herself back into position as the Forest King growled in irritation and nipped at her thighs. Afterwards, Winoa would marvel at how such a monstrous beast could have bitten her without drawing blood, but in the heat of the moment she could do nothing but yield to the Forest King's command and the pleasure he assailed her with. His tongue was so hot, she thought, so beautifully rough and slick with thick saliva. It dragged across her sensitive flesh, teasing each fresh moan from her throat with gusto.

Winoa could feel her muscles tensing, her round breasts becoming heavy and sensitive as more and more heat pooled in her belly. It no longer mattered that she was being eaten out by a wolf, even an intelligent one; the idea that it would soon be atop her, its animal prick buried in her sex hardly seemed worthy of consideration. All that mattered was the pleasure he could bestow upon her. And that, in time, she would bestow upon him in return.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, the Forest King let out a breathy huff and dove deeper, finally parting her flushed lips with his tongue and drinking her growing slick from its source. Almost as thick as a man's cock, it writhed and lapped against her walls, seeking out her most sensitive places and lashing them without respite. And he used it like a cock, working it in and out until she tensed and screamed and clenched around the piece of throbbing meat, desperate for the climax she knew must be fast approaching.

And then he stopped. Suddenly there was nothing but silence, the sounds of the forest and Tenebra's soft voice as she incanted her rite. It was so abrupt that Winoa leaped in surprise, fearing some hidden hunter had slain the Forest King with an arrow while they were both distracted. Instead she found herself staring into his eyes, golden and filled with cruel amusement, lips drawn back over his fangs in something that might have been a grin.

His cock twitched between his legs, thick and red and dripping with precome. Winoa glanced at it anxiously. It looked to have almost doubled in size and was wholly animal in shape. She let out a soft whimper and cast her eyes at Tenebra. The Forest King's pack had rallied around her, pacing in lazy circuits while the dark lady drew spiralling patterns which hung in the air and burned with green fire. Her attention was wholly on her work.

No help there, then, Winoa thought.

Her body still throbbed with need, so intense she thought it would drive her mad. Without the Forest King's ministrations to keep them silent, a handful of doubts slithered back into the corners of her mind, whispering with the voices of her old neighbours. Whore, they said. Dirty slut. So wanton she'll lay with anything, even an animal. Like a bitch in heat.

Then out of the corner of her eye, Winoa caught Tenebra looking at her. There was no expectation in the woman's clever eyes, no impatience or judgement; just a faint curiosity, even as the Forest King snarled in frustration and the ritual began to sputter and fail.

Winoa swallowed. She strangled the voices quiet, driving them furiously from her mind. They were gone, relics of a past she wanted nothing more to do with. The future lay before her. With an irritated grunt, she leaned down and slapped the Forest King's nose.

"What are you waiting for, huh?" She snapped, ignoring the spirit's furious bark in reply. "An invitation? Get up here and fuck me, you hairy bastard, we've kept the queen waiting long enough."

And then he was on top of her. He was everywhere, he was everything, blotting out the glade with his huge black body and demanding every iota of her attention. The Forest King pounced and knocked Winoa flat against the altar, driving the air from her lungs as he sought to teach the troublesome mortal he had been promised her place. She yelped in excitement, the sound almost a laugh, lifting her hips and raising her legs to embrace his hairy, hulking form as he stabbed towards her entrance. Winoa felt his ribs expand and contract with each massive breath as she wrapped her arms around the huge wolf-spirit, hugging him close, his softer belly-fur tickling over her sensitive breasts.

A thick animal scent filled the air. His cock skidded along her thigh, leaving a trail of precome and dragging a needy moan from her lips. Winoa had expected a brief eternity of frustration as they aligned their bodies, but it seemed Tenebra had given the great beast plenty of practice. They collided on the third attempt, the blunt head of his cock finding her entrance and shoving possessively inside.

Neither did he give the winebearer a chance to catch her breath. With his hind legs digging into the loamy earth and his forepaws gripping the altar, the Forest King fucked her hard and fast. He was more than possessive - he was rough and dominant, growling and snapping at the air as he rutted his bestial shaft into the soft, willing body beneath. She could do little but cling on for dear life, seizing handfuls of his thick fur for purchase, wailing and moaning in unbridled lust as she was claimed by her bestial lover.

Winoa loved it. No, more than loved it; she yearned for it, demanded it, eagerly taking everything the Forest King could offer. Every sensation was so wonderfully new, from the scratchy tickle of his fur dragging over her fair skin to the bassy rumble of his snarls in her ear. If this was wrong, Winoa thought, then she didn't want to ever be right again. Tenebra was correct. There was no higher ideal than pleasure, and she felt no regret as the rite burned away her last few shreds of innocence. Her only regret was that the great spirit's sheer pace, his aggression, gave her little chance to appreciate how beautifully different he was from her past lovers.

Winoa had taken two men at once before, but even that paled compared to how full, how beautifully satiated, the Forest King's prick made her feel. She trembled like a leaf, moaning throatily and pushing back in time with the great beast's movements, desperate to feel more, to take him deeper, to savour the mad rush of such a savage and primal mating. His cock was far hotter than a man's, and so large each thrust was punctuated by a dull ache in her gut whenever the great, feral spirit slammed it home. But the pain faded with each motion and the illicit joy which coursed through her only grew, and this time she did laugh, a wild sound of debauched liberation as she spiralled towards her climax.

There was something pushing against her entrance, Winoa realised; something vast and bloated, pulsing in time with the great beast's frantic heartbeat. She moaned in recognition, knowing what the Forest King wanted from her and surrendering it eagerly, craning her legs wider, rolling her hips up until he was able to press himself tight against her wet, throbbing entrance. She wouldn't have been able to resist in any case. She wouldn't have wanted to. The idea of taking the great spirit into her deepest, most intimate places, of being knotted and tied and flooded with his hot, animal seed was like a drug. It drove all other thoughts from her mind.

The pressure grew. The Forest King's thrusts had ceased, replaced with a constant, determined force as he sought to pack the last of himself into Winoa's eager body. His rising growl was matched by the winebearer's long, throaty cries of ecstasy as he throbbed inside her, his animal prick spilling thick pulses of precome against her walls in preparation for what was coming. Winoa gritted her teeth and locked her legs around the Forest King's body, pulling him close, their bodies singing with tension as they fought to close the last few inches between them.

There was a wet, slick noise. Winoa screamed. She felt a rush of pain as something gave way, quickly swept away by an even more intense surge of pleasure as she came, twitching, clenching and crying around the Forest King's knot as it forced its way into her eager body.

For a moment there was nothing. The world collapsed into white and black, a wave of ecstasy so intense Winoa almost feared it would burn her alive, and the sound of an animal heartbeat pounding in her ears. When she came too, she found the Forest King collapsed atop her, his heavy body slack and panting with exertion. The sun had dimmed a little, and the faint cramp in her shoulders suggested they had lain there together for some time. As she did her best to stretch, Winoa realised she could feel the spirit's knot lodged just inside her entrance. It was achingly hard and sinewy, and it pulsed in time with what must have been a near-endless flow of come being pumped deep into her core.

Bestial come, animal come, she thought distantly, flopping back against the altar stone with a lazy smile spread over her face. The Forest King grumbled and shifted atop her, the sensation of his knot turning inside her and tugging at her lips almost enough to spill her over into a second orgasm. It was like nothing she had ever felt before - so deep, so intimate, a sweet pressure that only grew as he came and came deep into her core. Soon long, pearly strings of the stuff began to drip from the site of their union, soothing and tingling her battered, sensitive flesh as it trickled down into the waiting bowl.

The Forest King's flanks heaved with exertion. Winoa found herself stroking him, running her fingers through his thick coat and murmuring small, meaningless words as they wallowed in the afterglow of their debauchery. The great spirit twisted to bring his head down to hers and licked the winebearer's cheek.

"I think he likes you," Tenebra said. She stood not far away, watching the mismatched couple with a warm smile on her regal face. "He was never so caring with me on our first time, though I think this place improves his temperament some. Isn't that right, you great brute? Perhaps we might even get to rub your belly, at least once you've finally come unstuck from my dear winebearer."

Winoa felt the Forest King vibrate as he growled a reply, though there was little malice in the sound. "Is - did the, the ritual work?" She murmured, turning so she could make out her queen past the blanket of inky hair shrouding her vision. Tenebra's face was flushed, Winoa realised, and the queen's breath came in small, carefully-controlled pants. The rest of the pack circled her eagerly, huffing excitedly and occasionally tugging at the hem of her robe.

"Oh, yes. You won't feel the difference here, and it will take a few days for the effects to make themselves known across the land. But the rite was a success."

The Forest King growled again. He shifted and tugged restlessly, each movement sending another pulse of soft, warm pleasure through Winoa's depths. She moaned softly and wriggled a hand between their bodies, sliding her fingers over her clit and caressing her entrance. She could feel his knot there, trapped in the silken embrace of her lips, and shuddered in silent ecstasy as he began to work it free. Tenebra watched silently, her smile never faltering for a moment, until there was a wet, sucking pop and the great wolf sprang back from the altar.

There was a moment of pain and, strangely, a sensation almost akin to loss as the Forest King broke their tie. Winoa felt a torrent of his seed spill forth from her entrance as he departed and idly ran her fingers through the wet slick, bringing it to her lips and licking her fingers clean. She had expected the Forest King to leave her broken and exhausted, but if anything she felt...energised. The post-coital haze was clearing from her mind, her heart beat strongly in her chest and her limbs felt fresh and limber. Something about the glade, Winoa thought as she sat up. Something about the wild magic in the air.

"So what happens now?" She asked, turning to face her queen.

Tenebra shrugged. She took the bowl and murmured a few words before tipping it back and drinking the contents with relish. "Your part in this is done. You may return to the castle, if you wish; Greyscale will see you back safely and, if you fear what the other servants might say, secretly."

The Forest King had slouched down next to the altar, raised one of his massive legs and set about the job of cleaning himself. His pack, however, were circling and bounding around the dark lady with increasing vigour. Tenebra scratched their ears and extended her hands to be licked, and almost absent-mindedly lifted the hem of her robe as one particularly bold wolf pushed its head between her legs. By the way Tenebra shook, Winoa has no doubt it was doing more than sniffing.

Slowly Winoa climbed down from the altar. She tested her legs and found them capable of holding her weight, then gathered her abandoned clothes and walked towards the treeline. Something made her stop, however. She chewed her lip, overtaken by the sudden urge to turn around and watch what she knew must, surely, be happening behind her.

Your part is done, Tenebra had said. You may return to the castle, if you wish. It had been a suggestion, not a commandment.

Did she wish?

Winoa lingered for a moment more, then turned. "What happens if I stay?" she asked. The Forest King raised his head briefly, giving her a look of cool disinterest before turning to his ministrations.

Tenebra's robe was gone. It lay at her feet like a puddle of moonlight. She stood naked without it, her slender body was flushed with arousal, her nipples standing out like stiff peaks in the cool air. The dark queen sank to her knees and offered no complaint as the first wolf mounted her, its cock slipping easily into her sex without resistance. For a moment her eyes drifted closed and she shuddered with visible bliss, before her calm, steady gaze and mysterious smile reasserted themselves.

"Then you will have truly learned the lesson I sought to teach," Tenebra called back.

For a heartbeat Winoa lingered, torn with indecision. Then she let out a shuddering breath and walked back towards her mistress. The pack broke ranks smoothly to let her through, and knelt down next to the taller woman. Tenebra's smile widened in approval, and then - the brief nip of claws, the whisper of fur and the heavy weight on her back, and the heat and hardness of an animal prick in her sex.

Soon the glade echoed to the sound of feminine moans and low, bestial snarls and pants. The wolves bucked and heaved atop the two women, frantically sating their lusts upon the queen and her winebearer with equal enthusiasm. Winoa and Tenebra fucked like beasts in turn, rutting back against their feral partners, each fully in the grip of their basest instincts. The winebearer could barely take her eyes off Tenebra; the sight of her queen on hand and knee, her elegant spine arched in pleasure, gasping softly as she was mated by a lean grey wolf was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

Tomorrow, Winoa knew, things would return to normal. Rank and title would reassert themselves. Tenebra would be a queen again, and she her servant. But until then there was nothing but the tyranny of the now, stretching on into an eternity of bliss.

Neither beast knotted on the first attempt. Winoa groaned as she felt a hot rush in her sex, the throaty sound turning from one of pleasure to disappointment as the wolf slipped free of her prone form. The beast's cock was still twitching and spurting helplessly as it wandered around to her front, whining pitifully as another member of the pack began to scrabble into position behind her.

Tenebra had already been mounted again; the dark lady had slumped forwards and pushed her hindquarters high in the air to give the scarred old brute fucking her a better angle. It bared its fangs at the other wolves which slunk around her and growled possessively, drooling long strings of saliva as it slammed its furry hips against Tenebra's thighs. She caught Winoa's eye and gave a soft, happy moan.

"Look at you," she murmured, her voice almost lost beneath the wolf's feral snarls. Tenebra nodded in approval as Winoa hesitantly reached for the first beast's dripping organ and guided it between her lips. "You give pleasure so wonderfully. So wantonly."

The thing was hot in her mouth, smoother and harder than a man's prick but somehow far more delicate. Winoa sucked gently, the sharp tang of her juices melting into the deep, musky taste of the wolf's seed as it came and came. The wolf's thin whines vanished in and instant, and Winoa felt her heart soar as it barked and panted in obvious joy. She swallowed its thin seed gratefully, letting it pool in her belly as the next finally scrabbled forwards and mounted her.

And it felt good. She was getting fucked by a wolf and it felt good. A few days ago the idea would have appalled her, but the Winoa of a few days ago already felt like a different person. Out of the corner of her eye she counted three or four beasts still pacing impatiently as they waited their turn, their red, bestial pricks stiff and desperate. Two more for them each, Winoa thought, if they were keeping things fair. And then perhaps the first few would have recovered enough to mount them again...

Mating with the Forest King had been a thunderous, elemental, almost maddeningly intense experience. He gave his partners little chance to think about what was happening. But his pack? She could feel the tickle of fur against her back and the gentle scratch of claws on her skin. The way the wolf fucking her clung to her hips with its hind legs. Its rough, animal breathing, the heavy scent of musk in the air and the slow patter of drool trickling down the back of her neck. The lingering taste of seed on her lips as her first partner finally withdrew.

Winoa moaned and shook with pleasure. She could feel everything. Savour everything. A chorus of high, lusty cries spoke of Tenebra's own rapture, and before long Winoa's voice joined with hers as the two women shuddered in climax. Tied firmly to their mates, trails of thin, burning seed leaking down their thighs, each turned to sating the Forest King's courtiers with their lips, licking and sucking each beast in turn until they were ready to be mounted again. And again, and again, and again...

And though he feigned disinterest, soon enough the Forest King himself rose from his lazy slouch and padded over, butting one of his followers aside and taking its place atop Tenebra. Momentarily freed from the great spirit's packmates, Winoa rolled onto her back and shuffled beneath her queen, lapping the slick of spend seed and arousal from the other woman's delicate lips as the Wolf King claimed her for his own. She kissed his knot as it burrowed into Tenebra's elegant body, opened her mouth for the torrent of fae seed that spilled forth as they uncoupled, and licked his monstrous, animal prick clean as his servents took their turns between her pale thighs.

It was divine. It was transcendent. The brief moments she was without a partner were torture; as though she were only half a person, left wanting and incomplete without a heavy, furred body scrabbling for purchase on her back and a smooth cock between her lips. Her heart thundered with joy each time one of the beasts climbed atop her. Every rush of seed which filled her passage or her throat was a gift. Some of the beasts, unable to control their savage thrusting, would slip free from the Winebearer's body and shower her with their thin semen, raining it over her face or painting long streaks up her arched back. Winoa shuddered happily with each marking, wearing their emissions with pride.

And why should she not? Each was a testament to their pleasure - the pleasure she had given them. Tenebra, too. The dark lady lay alongside her, her ivory skin flushed pink, the sorceress' normally unflappable countenance cast gleefully aside as she indulged in her baser desires. Her floral crown hung lank and tangled across her face, weeping stray petals across one cheek as one of the beasts circling them marred the other with its come.

Marred?

No.

Perfected.

Winoa moaned, long and deep. She had climaxed more than once - indeed, it had become difficult to tell where one peak ended and the next began - but she could feel another building, a roiling stormfront of ecstasy which churned in her core. It sparked and jumped as another wolf mounted her, her walls fluttering eagerly around the lupine shaft as it slid home and began to thrust into her core. Her fingers dug deep into the loamy soil. Tenebra rolled back onto all fours, facing her and letting out a satisfied gasp as she was immediately pounced on by a second beast. Its tongue lolled drunkenly, its glowing eyes rolling in pleasure as the dark lady's silken lips hugged it tight.

"You feel it, don't you?" Tenebra whispered. Her voice was hoarse, but her eyes flashed hungrily. Winoa nodded.

"Together?" The Winebearer asked. Her wolf shifted, gripping her hips tighter. Its heavy, explosive pants and low growls were thick in her ear.

The two women shuffled forwards, face to face, and linked hands. Their lips brushed, each rich and musky with the taste of animal come, moaning and gasping into one another's mouths as they raced towards their peaks. Winoa's mind spun madly. Her thoughts ceased. The world fell away, lost to the tyranny of the now. There was only the wolf atop her and the woman before her. The heat and hardness of its prick. The smoothness of her skin. The tickling drag of its fur. The soft embrace of her mouth.

They came together, their ecstatic cries drowned by their kiss, bucking and shuddering against one another as they were ravaged from either end. The wolves didn't stop - perhaps didn't even notice - their ferocious thrusts and the swollen pressure of their knots locking into place dragging Winoa and Tenebra's climaxes on and on, layering stimulation upon stimulation until the two women wept and wailed in savage pleasure. Their voices were joined with the Forest King, who, watching in kingly satisfaction as his subjects enjoyed themselves, let out a deafening howl which seemed to echo in time with the women's racing hearts.

That was far from the end of it, of course. Neither Winoa or Tenebra marked the passing of time, and sustained by the magic of the glade, each had stamina enough to last for hours into the night. Though their paired climaxes marked the high point of the revel, both were content to sink into a seemingly endless haze of wanton, pleasure-drunk gluttony. They played with one another as much as they did the Forest King and his pack, their lips dancing, tongues flicking, slender fingers caressing sticky thighs and tingling breasts. But eventually the sky grew dark and the first stars blinked into life above them, and the two women began to slow and tire.

Winoa felt it as a deep ache in her sex, not quite enough to drown out the haze of ecstasy which still flowed through her whenever another beast tied its body to hers. Then a persistent queasiness in her gut and a growing litany of cramps which turned her limbs to jelly. Tenebra, too, seemed to have reached her limit; though she lay on her side, cleaning the Forest King's throbbing organ with her tongue while another wolf nuzzled into her sex, when it tried to mount her she grunted something and pushed it away with her foot.

So too were the wolves drifting away. They were intelligent beasts, after all, and knew they had duties of their own to attend to. One by one they slunk off into the trees, their haunting, too-clever eyes visible briefly before fading out of sight. Winoa whimpered under as the final beast lodged in her over-stimulated, stinging lips withdrew, wracking her with one last sickly climax. Eventually only the two women and the Forest King remained, slouched together in a lazy tangle at the foot of the altar, utterly exhausted and aching with pain and pleasure alike.

"Winoa," Tenebra murmured. Her voice was heavy with exhaustion, barely more than a whisper, but it shone with contentment. At some point her crown of flowers had found its way onto the Forest King's head, where it drooped wearily from his ear. "Come. It's time we were away."

"We have to leave? I don't - " Winoa swallowed, raising her head from where she had lain it across the great spirit's flank. "I want to stay here forever..."

Despite her weak protests, she felt herself being eased upright. Her head was spinning - the world was spinning - and the idea of leaving the glade and returning to the cold mundanity of the outside world almost broke the winebearer's heart. Both women were in a ruinous state - their bodies slick with sweat and seed, their hair ragged and filthy, marked with scratches and cuts from their partners exertions. They moved slowly towards the treeline, leaning on one another for support

"Don't want to - why can't we stay?" She said, stumbling weakly. The trees opened up, roots slithering back to allow them egress. Behind them came the Forest King, his ears flat and tail dragging in exhaustion.

Tenebra sighed. "This is the second lesson, Winoa," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "A pleasure one cannot turn away from becomes a prison. And then it ceases to be a pleasure at all."

Winoa wasn't sure what she felt about that. She wasn't sure what she felt about everything. Her thoughts were a hazy soup that refused to fall into order, slipping through her fingers like sand whenever she tried to focus on one particular thing over the rest. The three traipsed through the forest in silence until they returned to the cart, where Greyscale lay with his feet propped up on the headboard, snoring merrily. The Forest King barked sharply, stirring the scarred old Kobold from his rest.

"Don't take that tone with me, hairy," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes and glaring down at the spirit. "I used to be a king myself, you know." He glanced over at the two women and smirked. "Two of you have fun?"

"It was exquisite, dear one," Tenebra replied, absent-mindedly rearranging her lank hair as she clambered up into the back. Winoa took her offered hand and clambered up after her, followed by the Forest King, who curled up opposite them and settled down to sleep. "Winoa performed beautifully, though I rather suspect we shall both need some time in the baths to recover upon our return."

Greyscale chuckled something and turned away, jerking the reins and directing the cart slowly back the way it had come. Distantly Winoa marvelled at how blandly the Kobold had reacted to their return, as if he was long used to his own, private debaucheries, but the thought slipped from her like all the rest. She settled down against Tenebra's shoulder and drifted off into sleep before the cart had even found its way back to the road.

\---

Nothing changed in the following weeks. Winoa was granted a few days of rest before returning to her duties. She served food for Bleakstone Castle's many hungry mouths and poured drinks for the steady flow of petitioners who came to beg Tenebra for favours. Once the last of her aches and pains faded, she made a little coin entertaining her regulars amongst the guards. Life went on as it had before.

And yet, everything had changed. In small ways, to be sure, but unmistakeable ones. When she brought the queen refreshments, the dark lady caught Winoa's eye and favoured her with a small, knowing smile. When she complained of difficulties being suffered by the other servants, they were quickly and neatly resolved instead of being brushed aside. Someone even seemed to have had a word with old Grukk, who still shot her poisonous looks in the corridors but kept his warty lips closed until she was out of earshot. 

Winoa was still a servant, and she knew she likely always would be. But there were degrees of servitude, and people were listening to her now. They knew her name and her face. She had earned Tenebra's favour, and more importantly, been granted her first insight into something very nearly sacred. With that, there was no limit to how far she might go.

So when the dark lady called her to her chambers, raised one delicate black eyebrow, and asked if she could assist her in bargaining with a group of saurians who were proving remarkably stubborn negotiators, what else was there to say but;

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written April 2020, briefly expanded prior to posting.


	4. Trollbooth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a small border town on the edge of her domain falls silent, Queen Tenebra takes it upon herself to investigate and resolve the situation. The situation, as it happens, involves a very large, hungry troll.

Of all the many roads which criss-crossed the scarred land of Rauenfels, few had a longer or more storied history than the old Ormsway. It had seen its heaviest use during the time of the terrible Dragon Kings, where those ancient beasts had marched long trains of criminals and dissidents out into the barren lands beyond civilisation to die. But it had existed long before then - first as a simple cattle-path, allowing the hardscrabble townships which eked out a living to meet and trade, before evolving into a religious site where Ormian priests marched their way into meditative trances.

Lately, however, its use had turned back to the mundane. It had led settlers from its neighbor Auska into Rauenfels' craggy heartlands, followed swiftly by soldiers when the new nation declared its independence. Countless inconclusive battles had been fought to control the muddy road and strangle Auska's supply lines, and even centuries after the larger nation ceased hostilities and grudgingly accepted Rauenfels' independence, border scuffles and skirmishes between patrolling soldiers were far from uncommon. 

For all its vaunted history, however, the Ormsway was not a pretty thing to behold. It was difficult to really think of the rough gouge in the earth, with its dripping green roof and miles of boggy swamps stretching out in all directions, as a road. More of a track, really, or perhaps a trail. If one was feeling especially cruel they might even refer to it as a ditch; it was certainly dirty enough. Not a gutter, though. That would be a step too far. After all, people usually bothered to clean the filth out of their gutters.

Or so went the thoughts of Queen Tenebra as her night-black carriage rattled its way through the slurry of mud and swampwater. Reclining within the sumptuous velvet interior, clad in a smoky gown and hiding her narrow features behind a wide-brimmed and veiled hat, she stared idly out the window and did her best to ignore the jarring thumps and curses as her driver hit every buried stone the Gods had left in his path. She had banged irritably on the roof the first few times it happened, but given up shortly thereafter. The poor man was doing his best, she supposed, and his seat was far less padded than her own.

"How far is it?" Tenebra called out, this time tapping lightly to ensure she had the driver's attention. "I had hoped to be done with this affair and back at Bleakstone before the end of the day."

"Not far, exalted one!" The man's voice was rough, but his reply came with the speed and haste of a minion eager to please. His name was Vorgok, Tenebra recalled; one of the bandy-legged hobgoblins who had come staggering out of the Banelands to swear themselves to her banner. Not as clever as a kobold, perhaps, but stronger and more tenacious by far, and entirely free from the latter's tendency to get spooked by large animals. "But, ah, depending on how long this takes, you might want to take a room at Tarstead before heading back. These roads ain't safe at night."

"Mmm. Indeed not." Tenebra murmured. They were a great deal safer than they had been before she came to power in Rauenfels, but things still haunted the blasted wilderness between its scattered townships and fortresses. Still, the idea of bunking down in some flea-bitten border town held little appeal. Especially if her darker suspicions about Tarstead proved true.

The village was, depending on who you believed, either the start or the Ormsway or the point where it ended. It sat less than a mile from the border between Rauenfels and Auska and technically remained an area of disputed territory. Tenebra usually cared very little for such matters, but Tarstead itself had declared for Rauenfels at the war's end and then a few centuries later, for her over the other petty warlords with whom she squabbled for power over the region. That made the town her responsibility, and losing it to Auska or one of her rivals would have been a terrible blow to her pride.

As such, when she learned there had been no contact with the town for over a month, Tenebra had been moved to investigate. The fact that Tarstead regularly dispatched handsome tributes of truffles unearthed from the swamps and gold taken in tolls from those crossing the border was a secondary consideration at best, but one which had been emphasised most strongly by the keepers of her treasury.

It had crossed her mind to send Francis or Greyscale in her stead. Of all her minions, they were the two she trusted most to carry her voice and her will to the scattered communities which called Rauenfels home. But both of them were dear to her, and the risk of sending either into an unknown situation was too great. The last thing Tenebra wanted was news that Francis had been lynched by a rebellious uprising, or that Greyscale had been goaded into massacring half the populace for no good reason. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, that Tarstead had been suddenly conquered by Auska, and whoever she sent would end up spitted on an iron pike as a trophy.

No, Tenebra had decided, this was a situation to handle herself. More than likely it was nothing, but it would do the peasants good to see her coming to address them in-person. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a small smile. After all, she did have a reputation for ruling with a personal touch.

Tenebra was shaken from her thoughts by another ugly curse from Vorgok and a sudden whinny from the horses as the coach lurched to a halt. They looked to be near Tarstead's outskirts - the swampland had thinned enough to give way to boggy areas of farmland, cut through by a deep, sludgy river of brackish water. The hunched form of a mill sat some distance away, its wheel turning slowly in the current, and just over the treeline Tenebra could make out the crumbling white spire of the Ormian temple from which the road drew its name.

There was a heavy thud as Vorgok lept down from his seat, followed by a string of yet more foul language interspaced between a stream of questions. Another voice answered him, its accent too thick to be easily made out. Tenebra listened for a moment before slumping back with a winsome sigh and drawing a small, silver needle from beneath the seat to clean her nails. After a few minutes Vorgok's jowly face appeared at the window with his hat clutched apologetically to his chest. Tenebra glanced at his expectant features and rolled her eyes, then gestured for him to speak.

"The - well, forgive me, mistress, but there's - " Vorgok glanced at something back over his shoulder. "There's a problem with the bridge, you see. We can't go on any further."

Tenebra lifted her gaze away from her nails, holding the hobgoblin's eye for several seconds. When he remained silent, she raised a single thin, sculpted eyebrow expectantly.

"A problem?" She prompted.

"Ah. Yes. Um. It's not there any more." The hobgoblin wrung his hands uneasily, a nervous, toothy smile stretching across his face. "The only other roads out of the town run through territory claimed by beasts, or go straight back to Auska."

Tenebra lifted her other eyebrow. Vorgok quailed magnificently, then scrambled backwards as his queen rose and stepped out of the carriage. Before her lay a scene of devastation. Huge pieces of dark granite, carved in the brutal and monolithic style of Rauenfels' remaining dwarvern masons, jutted brokenly from the brown river or lay embedded in its banks like freshly-planted tombstones. Here and there, farmers paddled across the water on small rafts to tend their crops, and she spotted the beginnings of a flimsy-looking rope bridge that had been erected and subsequently abandoned. Vorgok looked on from the sidelines, his smile growing increasingly anxious as Tenebra began to tap her foot against the soggy earth.

"Mistress, may I - " The hobgoblin began, only to be cut off with a sharp wave of the queen's hand.

"No, Vorgok, you may not." Tenebra's lips were pursed, and a faint note of genuine irritation began to creep into her voice. "What you may do is find me someone who can provide a solution. You were talking with someone just a moment ago; go and bring them to me."

Vorgok gulped and scurried away, leaning Tenebra to examine the destruction in silence. Wandering over to one of the boulders, she traced an elegant finger along the crumbling, damaged stonework and frowned. There were no scorch marks, no pitting or scoring - nothing she would associate with the ugly explosive devices the Auskans were known to use, or even with an overwhelming display of magical force. Nor did she believe it to be the work of a catapult - the debris was spread too unevenly for that. It was as if the bridge had been set upon and torn apart by hand.

The return of Vorgok pulled Tenebra from her musings, and this time, the hobgoblin came to her with one of the farmers in tow. He was an older man, stooped and thin but made strong by his labours, like a strip of old leather left too long in the sun. But despite his age his eyes were quick and bright, and he offered Tenebra a small, painful bow as they approached.

"S'an honour t'meet ye, lady. T'name's Hornsweller. Yer man says yer here about t'bridge?"

Tenebra inclined her head and bid Hornsweller to rise with a small guesture. "One of the reasons, yes. Tarstead ceased sending tribute some time ago, did it not? Am I to understand that this is the cause, or have your governors decided to renege on our agreements?"

"Nay, nay! Nothing of t'sort, me lady." Hornsweller shook his head. "We never stopped sending t'wagons, they just didn't get to ye. T'was the trolls!"

"Trolls?" Tenebra looked from the man, to the ruined bridge and back again. "Trolls did this?"

"Aye. Attacking t'wagons, stealing t'goods, eating t'horses. Don't know where t'came from. Auska, maybe. Be just their way t'drive the big buggers over here rather'n deal with 'em themselves."

"But why the bridge?" Tenebra frowned. She didn't bother asking why her guards had been unable to drive the attackers off. Trolls were fiendish assailants when roused, notoriously hard to wound and insensate to pain. "They're hardly the cleverest creatures in the world, but they wouldn't ruin their own meal ticket like this."

Hornsweller grimaced, pulling his cap off and kneading it uncomfortably between his hands. "T'were one o' the local boys, Kellerick. Said we could drive 'im off wit' fire. So he rounded up his mates and lit a bunch o' torches, and they all came marchin' down to be heroes."

"Ah. Unfortunate. How many of them were killed?"

"None, thank t'gods. Kellerick lost his arm an' the rest scarpered. So did the troll, but then 'ee came back, and there were lots of 'em. Stompin' and howlin' they were, an' they pulled down the bridge before vanishin' back into t'swamp." Hornsweller offered Tenebra another stiff bow. "We still hold to t'pacts we swore, and yer still our rightful sovereign, but we ain't doin' anything without t'bridge. All t'other roads be too dangerous."

Tenebra remained silent for several long seconds, staring thoughtfully at the distant form of Tarstead. Finally she glanced back at Hornsweller.

"'Eee'?" she asked. The farmer blinked in confusion, before clearing his throat apologetically.

"Er, that'd be 'he', milady."

"Fascinating. Hmm." Tenebra slipped her veil aside and tapped her narrow chin thoughtfully, ignoring Hornsweller's short intake of breath at the sight of her face. "Very well. Hornsweller, go to your masters, your headsman - whoever it is that leads you. Tell them that the Queen has heard of their plight and forgives their lack of tribute, and that she has decided to resolve the situation personally. Masons will be dispatched in time to see to rebuilding the bridge, and soldiers will begin pacifying the other roads until the work is finished. I will meet with them tonight to discuss details, and I expect suitable accommodation to be provided on my arrival."

She turned next to Vorgok, cutting the hobgoblin off before he could speak. "You, Vorgok, will remain with the carriage and await my return. There will be towels and a robe packed in the rear; have them ready and waiting when I get back."

"You're, er, you're going to go fight the trolls on your own?" Vorgok squeaked. "But what if you don't, er, if you don't - "

Hornsweller took a single step away from the hobgoblin, who suddenly realised what he was about to say and clapped a hand over his mouth in terror. With a small, thin smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, Tenebra leaned over and grasped his chin, pulling it up to meet her icy gaze.

"Then I suppose you will be waiting for a very long time, won't you?" Tenebra released the quivering driver and turned back to Hornsweller, who eagerly pointed her towards where the trolls had vanished before retreating back towards town with her message. Vorgok lingered for a moment longer before he too dashed to fulfil his queen's orders, unpacking a succession of thick, fluffy towels and a hooded robe from the rear of the carriage before scurrying back to the driver's perch to play lookout.

With the two of them gone, Tenebra permitted herself a small smile, her eyes shining with impish delight. What had been an otherwise mundane excursion had taken a rather unexpected twist. Content her will was being carried out to the best of Vorgok and Hornsweller's abilities, Tenebra rubbed her hands together eagerly and set off to see what kind of trouble awaited her.

Following the river led her away from the edge of town, back towards the distant mountains which loomed over Rauenfels' heart. The further Tenebra went, the thicker the trees became. They reached out for one another like desperate lovers as she left Tarstead's boggy farmland, before embracing so tightly that the sun was all but hidden from view. By the time she had passed the town's slowly-turning mill, the world had faded away behind a dank curtain of dripping green. 

Mud sucked at her shoes and clung to the hem of her gown as she made her way deeper, humming a half-forgotten tune as she brushed through banks of thick ferns and patches of glowing fungi. Some might have paused or turned back at the gathering darkness, but the gloom gave Tenebra little worry. There was darkness and there was Darkness, after all; one was as pure and natural as the brightest noonday sun, and the other...

Tenebra had seen swamps that had gone bad before. They were foul places - lakes of bubbling, foul-smelling filth, slithering things that hissed and spat and screamed with the voices of their victims, trees so bloated with corruption that their bark would slough away to reveal the fanged lesions beneath. Nothing in such haunts could be described as truly alive; they merely existed, often for no purpose beyond taking the lives of those foolish enough to enter, and were better off put to the torch as soon as possible. 

The swamps which spread beyond Tarstead, by contrast, teemed with life. The trees were strong and healthy, their branches drooping low with broad strings of wet leaves. Birds flitted between them, filling the air with piping music and chasing oversized insects which buzzed back and forth on scintillating wings. Every now and then Tenebra would catch sight of something larger - a muck-deer chewing moss from a fallen log or a clawed rakerbeast digging out a new den for its cubs. It was peaceful, she thought with a faint smile. Harmonious. 

And warm. The swamp trapped heat, turning the air hot and muggy, and Tenebra found her spirits flagging a little as the going became more difficult. One of her sleek leather shoes was claimed by a sinkhole concealed under a thick mat of vegetation, and the combination of sweat and muck staining her dress left it heavy and uncomfortable. With an irritated tut, the dark queen made her way to an old tree and stripped the smoky, shimmering garment off, tossing it over a broken bough and hanging her remaining shoe nearby for later. 

Francis would have had a heart attack. Tenebra laughed then, imagining how the orc would have fussed around, scolding her for treating her clothes so casually. It was expensive, yes, but money was just money. There was always more of it if one looked hard enough.

"And besides," Tenebra said, grinning impishly as a bird fluttered down to alight upon her dangling shoe. "I am amidst nature, am I not? Is it not right to go natural in such circumstances?"

The bird cocked its head, observing the woman's nude body in mute incomprehension. She was as pale and slender as a willow, her curves small but well-formed, without an ounce of excess fat to be found anywhere on her frame. But where another woman might have been left cringing with embarrassment, Tenebra wore her nudity with the same unflappable, regal pride she would have carried to a formal dance. It was as though she was a creature apart from the world, capable of moving through it unhindered by the same shames and worries that so bedevilled Minesthea's everyday folk. 

Now undressed, the going became considerably easier. Warm mud squished between Tenebra's toes as she returned to the river, noting for the first time the occasional fragment of debris lodged along its banks. Most of it was cheaply worked wood, but here and there Tenebra spied the occasional loop of metal half-buried in the riverbanks or tangled around the roots of a tree. Barrels, she thought with a surge of excitement; the kind her servants used for bringing new produce in to the kitchens. She must be close.

The trail led her to a fork in the river, and then a little further down, a narrow tributary marked by a number of broken crates and fragments of armour, piled high around the riverbanks like offerings before a dismal god. Tenebra felt her heart begin to beat faster as she picked her way through them, drawn on by a chorus of splashes and low, phlegmy grunts. She could see the tributary ended in a shallow pool, ringed by gnarled, drooping trees and curtains of hanging vines which hid whatever was making the noise from her prying eyes.

Moving with a speed and slightness that would have surprised most of her courtiers, Tenebra brushed quietly through the greenery and pressed herself up against an old willow. It was rough against her bare skin and slimy with wet moss, but provided enough shelter to risk a quick peek at the source of the commotion. 

There, wallowing in the stagnant water, was her troll. 

It was a huge, squat thing, like a toad warped into the shape of a man. Warty skin the colour of mud and pond-scum stretched loosely over a stooped body swollen with rolls of corpulence and irregular knots of muscle. Its arms were enormous, almost as long as Tenebra herself was tall, terminating in shovel-like hands which effortlessly carved the top from a wooden crate that would have taken four of her servants to lift. The creature let out a low, bubbling chuckle and dragged forth a string of plucked game birds, dangling them above its cavernous maw and devouring them one by one like a sybarite sampling from a bunch of grapes. 

And, hanging beneath its stocky legs, was all the evidence Tenebra needed that the troll was indeed male. Very male, in fact; she'd had bigger, but not without some difficulty and considerable discomfort afterwards. The thought brought an eager smile to her face. 

This was going to be interesting. 

"Hello, there," Tenebra said, stepping out from behind her tree. She leaned against it nonchalantly, idly cleaning some muck from her fingernails as the troll dropped its plunder and whirled around in a great splash of muddy water. "You seem to be enjoying my dinner."

The creature stared for long seconds. Its face was broad and squashed, dominated by a bulbous nose and huge mouth which overflowed with jutting yellow tusks. Two beady black eyes stared out from behind a tangled mess of weed-like hair, and its ears twitched as it slowly processed what it was seeing.

"Pretty," the troll finally said. Tenebra glanced up, a sly smile spreading across her narrow features. It raised the remaining birds and waved them at her. "This pretty food?"

"Indeed. I am Tenebra, the Queen of these lands, and everything within them belongs to me." Tenebra took a step closer, placing a hand on her chest for emphasis. "So when I heard someone was stealing my food, I came to see who was responsible. But I certainly wasn't expecting to find you." She raised her eyebrows. "There aren't many trolls in Rauenfells."

The troll squinted at her, its deep brow furrowed and thick lips moving silently as it chewed things over. Nobody - not even the scholars native to Regestera, where the creatures were most common - seemed to be able to agree on how intelligent trolls were. Most peasants simply wrote them off as astonishingly dull-witted monsters, but that didn't explain the neatly-arranged stone cairns they left scattered wherever they went, or their uncanny knack for lairing near bridges and roadways able to provide them with ample food. 

Personally, Tenebra thought they were just slow. They could live for centuries, after all. They could afford to take their time thinking about things.

"What...queen?" The troll grunted. "Queen like hag?"

"Perhaps. What is a hag to you?"

There was another pause. "Hag...hag like...hag lead. Hag find lair, split up food, choose male for mate. Like big-wolf lead small-wolf."

Tenebra nodded. "Then yes, I suppose you might call me the Rauenfells' hag." Hag-queen had a nice ring to it, she thought distantly, and filed the idea aside for later. "Is your hag here? May I speak with her?"

The troll's face crumpled and it flopped down into the swamp with a despondent splash. "No hag. Hag dead. Ass-ka men come. Troll-kin all fight, but Ass-ka men bring fire. Hag dead. Now only Grimgrun and kin left." The troll - Grimgrun, Tenebra smoothly corrected herself - looked up, an expression of utter misery on it toadlike face. "Grimgrun come here, make new lair in Run-fells. But no hag. No know what do now."

There was something almost plaintive about Grimgrun's final utterance. It - he - looked up plaintively at Tenebra. "Run-fells men bring fire too. You Run-fells hag? That you?"

"No. No, I gave no such command, and I would have had strict words with anyone who did so in my name." Tenebra advanced into the pool, shivering slightly as her feet sank into the warm silt and stagnant water washed around her thighs. "This is my land. As long as you lair here, you are safe, and so long as you do as I ask, I will see you are protected and cared for in return." She reached out towards the troll, offering him her hand. "I would be your hag, and you would be my subject. And the most loyal of my subjects are rewarded handsomely."

Grimgrun looked up, his tiny black eyes meeting Tenebra's own. There was grief and suspicion there, built up like a callus by the actions of her own people and the Auskan raiding party alike, but it was fighting a losing battle against the fresh hope Tenebra had presented him with. And, the sorceress thought, not a little desire to boot. For long moments Grimgrun sat in the muddy pool before finally rising back to his feet and taking the sorceress' hand in his clammy grip.

"Never had not-troll hag before. Maybe bad idea. But Grimgrun think yes. Not...think good on own. Not know what do." He looked down on her, the wariness fading from his eyes. "Ten-bra hag. Pretty hag. Yes. Grimgrun hers."

"Wonderful." Tenebra's smile was beautific. It took only the barest tug on Grimgrun's arm for him to amble closer, and she wasted little time in stepping into his embrace, running a hand over the troll's muscular chest and swollen belly. "And I suppose such an...enthusiastic declaration of fealty should be rewarded. Tell me, what did you say earlier?" She tossed her hair and looked up at the looming monster before her. "About hags choosing their mates?"

Grimgrun was not, by any conventional means, an attractive creature. Huge and fat, surrounded by a strange odor of fresh fish and old water, most women would have baulked at the idea of sleeping with him. Tenebra, however, was not most women, and over the years her tastes had steadily wandered ever further from convention. Over the course of her life she had lain with beasts, men and monsters of all shapes and sizes, and given the choice between beauty and novelty, she would choose novelty every time. He was strange, he was new, and the dark queen of Rauenfels had decided to claim him as her own.

The troll began to reply, but never had the chance to finish. Seizing a handful of Grimgrun's reedy hair and craning up on tiptoe, Tenebra planted a deep kiss on the troll's open mouth, moaning softly and crushing herself against his swollen, slimy body. She felt him tense, confused and surprised by her aggression, before more primal instincts took over and he forced his thick tongue between her lips in reply. A hand large enough to wrap around her midriff slid down her flank with surprising gentleness, yellowing claws scratching against her ribs and hips and rump.

Tenebra moaned softly into the fetid cave of Grimgrun's mouth, tipping her head back as he abandoned his kiss to lick at her neck. She could feel his strength, his weight, in every movement, the way he trembled as she twined a pale leg around his trunk-like thigh and pushed needily against him. Out the corner of her eye, Tenebra could see his cock rising like a rotten log breaching the surface of a river. It was humanoid enough in shape if not size, thick with strange warts and veins, surrounded by a scraggly mess of hair that drifted like water-weed in the murky pool. The sight of it sent a warm shudder of anticipation down her spine. 

"Pretty-hag Ten-bra small," Grimgrun rasped the words in her ear, his voice the bassy rumble of deep water. "Not hurt?"

"Oh, no. No, you need not fear hurting me. Only..." Tenebra pulled away, an eager smirk on her face. "You might prefer to let me set the pace, hmm? At least to begin with. Now, come." 

Hand in hand she led Grimgrun back to the bank of the river. Webbed feet sank into the muddy earth as he hefted himself out of the pool and shook himself off, dirty water flowing in sheets from his scaly back. The sheer size of him was something to behold, and Tenebra felt the faint stirrings of arousal which had drawn her into the swamp blossoming into something warm and heavy in her gut. In a way he reminded her of a circus strongman she had met in her youth - they shared the same bulging muscles, the same rotund bodies, the same exaggerated sense of caution when they touched her.

A gentle push against Grimgrun's chest sent the troll down on his backside; the flash of confusion in his black eyes melted away to nothing as Tenebra knelt between his lumpen thighs and wrapped her hands around his cock. It was as cool and slimy as the rest of him, a little spongier than a man's would be but with a solid core of hardness that set her loins tingling with excitement. She traced a spiralling vein with her forefinger, following it up and around the troll's throbbing prick before brushing her lips delicately over his crown. 

Grimgrun let out a low groan in response, his body shuddering in pleasure as Tenebra's first experimental touches gave way to a long, indulgent lick up the underside of his shaft. Finding that he tasted of nothing more foul than brackish water and salt she repeated the gesture, stroking her long fingers around the fleshy bulb of his head all the while. He twitched in her grasp, his cock throbbing with need as Tenebra's fluttering laps and kisses slowly grew more intense. Soon enough she had what she sought - the first fat dollop of precome oozed forth from the tip of Grimgrun's cock, crawling steadily down to meet the dark queen's tongue as it lashed teasingly around his base.

And there was a lot of it. It came not in beads, like from a man or a kobold, nor in the thin spurts Tenebra drew forth from the Forest King or his pack, but a thick runnel of glutinous fluid which trickled endlessly down Grimgrun's monstrous shaft. This time it was Tenebra's turn to moan - she felt herself clench needily and pressed her cheek up against Grimgrun's cock, closing her eyes and letting the warm, sticky current flow slowly across her sculpted face. Her heart throbbed as it reached her lips and her sex pulsed again, so intensely it was almost painful, every fibre of her being crying out with the need to be filled. 

She suppressed it. It wouldn't do to be seen as too needy, of course, but Tenebra had no intent on letting her more base instincts take over quite yet. Grimgrun was something new - something she had never experienced before, and she intended to explore every inch of her prize before having her way with him. Glancing up the titanic expanse of the troll's body, Tenebra caught sight of Grimgrun's face. His cavernous maw was hanging wide open, eyes bleary with pleasure and tongue dangling limp between his jutting fangs. 

"Enjoying yourself, I see?" She asked, raising a slim eyebrow. When there was no immediate reply, Tenebra slipped a hand into the troll's scraggly hair, cupped his heavy balls in the palm of her hand and squeezed gently. That brought him around - Grimgrun jerked, his whole body rising up around her like a mountain range moved to anger, before letting out another guttural sigh and flopping heavily back down onto the muddy bank.

"Pretty-hag good. Old-hag not do this. Not mate with hands. Not mate with mouth." He groaned, one of his enormous claws running gently along Tenebra's cheek. "Pretty-hag mate other troll-kin like this?"

"Of course. And in the traditional way besides." Tenebra shot the troll a lopsided smile, rising up on her knees so they could see each other over the creature's swollen belly. She let her free hand wander over his lumpen thighs, caressing patches of rough scale and teasing her fingers through reed-like clutches of hair. "I'll have to meet with the people of Tarstead, of course. Ensure they know you're to be left alone...and that you won't cause them any trouble in the future." Her voice held a carefully measured ounce of reproach. "But when we're finished, you have my word I shall return, and then..."

Tenebra ran a forefinger along the underside of Grimgrun's head, then brought it up to inspect the thick dollop of precome and skin-slime which had gathered there. Pausing just long enough to ensure she still had the troll's attention, she slipped it into her mouth and swallowed with a small moan of pleasure. "Then, I'll lie with you all. One, by one, by one. What kind of hag would I be if I did not?" 

"And...and, pretty-hag mate Grimgrun now as well?" The troll's voice was an octave higher, and his cock twitched needily where it lay against his gut. Tenebra laughed softly.

"Oh, yes. I rather think so."

Tenebra rose elegantly from her position between Grimgrun's thighs and took a step closer, straddling the troll's lumpen body. For a moment she stood there, naked but for the mud clinging to her alabaster body, hands planted imperiously on her hips and eyes flashing down at the lumpen monster lying helplessly before her. It was a scene worthy of being captured - perhaps in stone, or art, or at the very least a song, and she made a mental note to have the court's artists summoned as soon as possible upon her return to Bleakstone. 

But for now, she had far more immediate pleasures to think about. The ache in her loins had become impossible to ignore; she felt flushed with heat, tense, needy. 

She was ready.

Perhaps sensing her intentions, Grimgrun grasped his cock and held it upright, its swollen head pointing arrow-straight towards the queen's dripping sex. Holding her hands out for balance, Tenebra lowered herself slowly onto him, letting out a sharp hiss as her tender lips brushed against the troll's crown. This, she knew, was the tricky part, and began to rock her hips back and forth, easing the bulging, slime-slick organ into her passage a fraction at a time. Grimgrun's clawed hands wrapped around her pale thighs and held her steady as she slowly impaled herself upon him. 

It felt delicious. The greasy slime which covered the troll's body made their joining far smoother than it might have been, and it wasn't long before she had worked the whole of Grimgrun's head inside her. Inch after inch of thick, warty shaft followed, splitting the dark queen's pristine sex wide and vanishing deep into her silken embrace. Tenebra could feel the thing throbbing in time with her own heartbeat as she worked it deeper. There was no pain, just the odd twinge of discomfort as she stretched and clung to Grimgrun's organ, soon swept away by the crushing bow-wave of ecstasy which followed in its wake. 

By the time her fingertips brushed the troll's belly and her knees came to rest in the mud by his hips, Tenebra knew she had taken all she could. Almost every inch of him lay nestled snugly in her depths, the last little stretch of Grimgrun's cock shimmering with the slippery trail of precome and arousal dripping from the site of their union. The weight of the thing - it's swollen, turgid density - made her head spin, and Tenebra allowed herself a moment to catch her breath, glancing down to drink in the beautiful sight of the troll's cock vanishing between her thighs.

"Grimgrun...good? Good mate?" Grimgrun rasped, staring up at her slender body in wonder. His hips shook and his chest heaved with exertion, every fibre of his being vibrating with desire. 

Tenebra made a non-committal noise and rocked her hips, grinding down on her monstrous paramour's cock. The movement came easily over Grimgrun's cool, slippery flesh, and she was rewarded with a bright flash of pleasure as her clit dragged against a rough patch of scales concealed within his scraggly hair. Grimgrun jumped in turn as she clenched around him, his soft, fleshy body rippling like the tide and driving himself back into Tenebra's aching sex. She yelped at that - a high, almost girlish sound, rather undignified and utterly unbecoming of her station, but the deep thrust of Grimgrun sliding back into her depths saw it melt into a moan of utmost satisfaction.

"Very good," Tenebra purred. Grimgrun's slimy arms reached out and she leaned forwards, allowing the troll to embrace her as she draped herself over his bloated form, resting her elbows on his chest and her chin in her palms, face to toadlike face with her trollish lover. With a few more movements of her hips she found her rhythm, gliding up the troll's shaft before lingering at her peak, allowing the troll to thrust home and rock her back to her starting point. It was soft, lazy, indulgent sex, and Tenebra gloried in the slow creep of warmth that began to spread through her core with each gentle thrust of Grimgrun's monstrous prick.

Sodden clumps of hair tickled her thighs as she leisurely ground back and forth, while patches of scales, claws and the odd barnacle scraped teasingly against her bare skin. But for all that Tenebra felt there was something almost comforting about him - his size, his simple demeanour, the softness of his body. No, Grimgrun was anything but attractive, and a part of Tenebra's mind shuddered in perverse lust at the thought of how she must look, stretched adoringly out atop the troll's bloated form. But that was the glory of it. Tenebra had no use for taboos; she had abandoned any sense of shame decades ago, fleeing from such base worries into the freedom and enlightenment that only darkness could offer. 

After all, she was a queen, was she not? Was everything she saw not hers? Was every creature which walked or flapped or crawled through her domain not also her subject, whether they accepted her rule or not? So who but she had the right to say what was right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, permitted or taboo?

Tenebra could have stayed there for hours, nursing herself into one comforting orgasm after another, but it was perhaps that heady rush to her ego which cut through the sublime haze of pleasure. As good as Grimgrun felt at work inside her, she began to find herself wanting more. More vigor, more force; she wondered what it would be like to feel the swollen monster's weight atop her, to really learn what his prick could do.

"Grimgrun," she murmured, drawing her fingers down the monster's knotted face. "Would you care to do something for me?"

"Grimgrun do all. Pretty-hag need just say."

"Mm," Tenebra chuckled. "That's the answer I wanted to hear." She met the troll's bleary gaze and battered her eyelashes, favouring him with a coy smile. "I'd like you to lay me on my back now, and don't be afraid to use a little more, hmm, power? I'd like to feel it. To feel you." 

The troll stared for a few moments, his hips still bumping away as he tried to digest what Tenebra was asking of him. Then he shifted, cradling the Rauenfels' dark queen in his enormous arms and rising to his lumpen knees, before placing her gently down on the muddy riverbank and leaning forwards. Not for a moment did his cock slip free from its silken cradle, and Tenebra gave voice to a long, soul-deep moan of pleasure as she felt it bore deeper still, driven irresistibly on as Grimgrun's heavy weight settled atop her. 

He was - huge. He was everywhere. What had been a clinical observation from afar, or even while she was atop him, became something entirely different when Tenebra found herself staring up at him. It was like trying to make love to an avalanche or a mudslide. Her slender legs barely stretched around Grimgrun's broad hips. His gut pushed her down into the earth's embrace, the two merging into and endless ocean of cool, slippery flesh and warm mud in which she felt she might drown. His arms were pillars either side of his head, his fetid breath filled what few inches of space there was between them. Slime dripped across her breasts. Claggy lengths of hair tickled her stiff nipples. 

And then he began to thrust.

It wasn't the brutal thing some of her demonic partners offered, nor was it as savage as the Forest King's bestial mountings. But it was resolute. It was relentless. And it was very, very deep. Grimgrun possessed strength to match his stature and Tenebra felt every ounce of it as he plunged into her eager body, each thrust punching the air from her lungs in a trembling wail. She came then, hard and fast, the sudden loss of control and sheer intensity of the troll's rut sweeping her away in a tide of thrashing ecstasy.

If Grimgrun even noticed her climax, he didn't show it. Even as Tenebra writhed and bucked beneath him, her legs spread grotesquely wide and waving in the air like the blades of a windmill, the troll just kept going. His heavy balls were raw and swollen with need and crashed against the sorceress' hindquarters with a series of wet slaps, almost drowning her thin cries of pleasure and Grimgrun's own phlegmy grunts. It drew Tenebra's orgasm on too long, turning it into something sick and queasy before her abused sex surrendered and the swollen ache of overstimulation melted away into a new wave of bliss.

"Ah, ah, ah! Yes!" Tenebra panted the words, her voice hoarse. She was filthy with mud, sweat and troll-slime, could feel it rolling and sliding from her body as Grimgrun's bloated form moulded itself around her, but it only added to the chorus of pleasure which sang through her blood. Slender hands grasped at the troll's flanks, caressing his ribs and knotting through tangles of hair and weeds, Tenebra clinging to Grimgrun's heaving body even as her shuddering walls hugged tight around his warty prick.

Another orgasm came and went before Tenebra sensed Grimgrun was nearing his own peak. His thrusts were becoming faster and shallower, each heaving breath more ragged than the last, the troll's eyes shrunk to tiny black dots as he struggled to hold off the inevitable. His cock twitched in its silken prison and Tenebra pushed herself up onto her elbows, bringing her lips close enough for a few whispered words.

"Prolong things any - any further and I fear you might hurt yourself," she laughed softly, letting her breath play teasingly around the troll's ragged ear. "You have been...more than - ah - satisfactory. Come, let me feel the - the last of you - "

With that she flopped back down into the mud, a drunken smile plastered across her regal features. Grimgrun rumbled something unintelligible by way of reply and tensed - something deep and muscular, his whole body winding itself as tight as a spring - before throwing back his head and coming with a filthy bellow that shook the trees and sent flocks of birds spiralling madly into the air.

And oh, when he came, he came. There seemed to be no end to the stuff - thick, sticky and glutinous, Tenebra felt it pouring into her, rope after rope of it slathering her passage and flooding deep into her very core. She purred in contentment, stroking Grimgrun's face and shoulders and murmuring soft words of praise as the torrent of monstrous seed swirled and boiled within. It was only when thick, white runnels of the stuff began to leak from around the site of their union that Grimgrun withdrew and collapsed in a sagging heap next to her.

He was still coming. More slowly now, perhaps, but out of the corner of her eye Tenebra could see the sluggish current still flowing down his slackening prick. Lifting herself half out of the mud, she slid in next to the dazed troll and collapsed wearily against his thigh before tugging his cock close enough to sup from the last few spurts of his issue. It was rich and bitter, and she shuddered in pleasure as warm drops of the stuff slithered down her chin and splattered across her pert bust.

Grimgrun opened one eye, bewilderment shining out of its depths. Tenebra offered him a lopsided half-smile in return.

"It seemed a shame to waste it," she said, shrugging one of her shoulders. Grimgrun shook his head.

"Pretty-hag not like old-hag at all. Old-hag not mate so...so...good." The troll paused. "Pretty-hag still mate Grimgrun troll-kin?"

"Of course. I said I would, did I not?" Tenebra wiped the last fleck of come from Grimgrun's cock and rose, carefully testing to see if her legs could bare her weight before stepping away. "And I rather look forward to seeing if your kin make for an equally satisfying experience. But that will come later."

She stretched, flexing like a cat and shaking the life back into her tired limbs. "Go and round them up, tell them what we've agreed. I will return once I've ensured Tarstead understands you're to be left alone." Tenebra gave Grimgrun a warning look. "And that you'll be no danger to them in return, do you understand?"

Grimgrun nodded and, after collecting his wits, dragged himself back to his feet. They exchanged a few more words before the troll turned and ambled off deeper into the swamp. Tenebra lingered just long enough for his murky green hide to melt away behind the dripping vegetation before departing herself. After all, she had an appointment to keep.

It was properly dark by the time Tenebra left the swamp and found herself back on Tarstead's outskirts. The fields were empty and though the town glowed with lamp-light, its citizens seemed quite happy to stay within their walls after dark. Her carriage remained where it was, the horses untethered and allowed to graze, Vorgok sat resolutely on his driver's perch with a grim expression on his face.

His eyes nearly fell out of his head at the sight of her.

Tenebra supposed it wasn't his fault. He was new to her court and hadn't yet become used to her odd whims, and even the most jaded of her retainers would have stopped dead at the sight of her. Plastered head to toe in mud and slime, carrying the sad remains of her gown over one shoulder and still flushed with the last embers of arousal, even Tenebra would have admitted she wasn't at her best.

But that, of course, was what minions are for, and before long she had retreated into her carriage, drawn the curtains tight and towelled herself off. It wasn't perfect, but between that and her emergency robe, it got her into Tarstead and quickly sequestered at a more upmarket inn where she could wash and collect herself.

So it was that when she summoned Tarstead's mayor - a short, rotund man with a heavy chin and thinning hair, clad in richly-decorated fur robes and bearing a golden seal marked with her emblem - Tenebra was once again the very vision of cold, dignified royalty. The man bowed and scraped, pouring all manner of excuses upon her until her patience finally broke.

"No, no. Enough! No more apologies!" Tenebra waved her hand, cutting the man off mid-sentence. "What happened was not your fault. Neither my staff nor my retainers went without food. I came here to ensure all was well, not fuss over lost tithes."

She sighed and sank into the steep-backed chair that had been provided. It was woefully uncomfortable compared to Bleakstone's throne, but necessary to ensure she gave off the appropriate sense of power. "I have parleyed with a representative of the trolls causing these issues. They were driven here by an Auskan raiding party, and I have granted them asylum - " 

Tenebra held up a finger, silencing a wheedling protest before it could be voiced. "On the assumption they cause you no further trouble. Given how strong the creatures are, with proper oversight I am confident they can help repair your bridge at the very least, and in time taught to act as guards for this fine town."

The mayor murmured something into his moustache, then nodded tentatively. "Which would free up more of t'guards t'protect the caravans, just in case Auska was t'get any ideas. Aye, yer highness. I'll have word put out to t'men, make sure they leave them trolls well enough alone. Might even be able t'scrounge up some spirits as an apology for Kellerick's foolishness with t'fire." He looked up at her, watery eyes eager for praise. "One thing, though - yer sure they'd be willing t'help us like that? I've never known trolls to work with people before."

Tenebra smiled in contentment and leaned back, steepling her fingers and staring out of the window behind, to where the swamp stretched on into the infinite darkness beyond.

"Oh, yes. The one I met was very eager to please. With the right incentives I'm quite sure his kin will prove just as amenable."

There was a little more talk before the mayor departed, leaving Tenebra alone. Vorgok's snores echoed up through the floorboards from the servant's quarters, and presently she rose, letting out a long yawn and making for her own chamber. 

Negotiations were such an exhausting business, she thought, and tomorrow promised to be a very busy day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written December 2020.


End file.
